


Annie, Abed, and the Long Con

by callmealvinandthechipmunks



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: I have no clue how to tag things, M/M, Pining, Post Season Six, Rom-Com vibes, Slow Burn, Yearning, abed tries to live life by movie logic and goes too too far, bi annie rights, greendale’s illegal production of the shrek the musical, i listened to speak now by taylor swift and here we are, moon madness, set two years after the finale, tags will change as we go, throwing up over the side of the eiffel tower, veronica lodge voice "we're endgame", we were in love we were in love palisades palisades, wedding chaos, wildly changing povs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24499948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmealvinandthechipmunks/pseuds/callmealvinandthechipmunks
Summary: “Annie. Have you ever considered that your endgame was actually right under your nose the whole time and you were just too foolish to realize it?”Abed is supposed to be getting married, but the study group discovers he is not planning on the actual getting married part.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 119
Kudos: 368





	1. Prologue: David

If you asked Annie who her best friend was, she would tell you that she “doesn’t like to pick favorites” and “that’s a little middle school, isn’t it” like the very mature and intelligent woman she is.

But if she had to really be honest, really, she would say Abed. She is his Best Woman after all.

She doesn’t necessarily think she’s Abed's best friend or anything, she knows who that title belongs to. It’s simply that she’s closer to Abed than she is to any other member of the study group... In a platonic way, of course. Don't get her started on the web of weird her relationship with Jeff was.

She and Abed had only grown closer when Troy left and stayed close when they both left Greendale, Colorado for bigger and better things. And it’s not like she didn’t expect one of Abed’s Better Things in Los Angeles to be a new relationship, that would be unrealistic. Abed is a catch! But she is a little surprised when Abed casually mentions a boyfriend in conversation, during their weekly Skype session.

“Wait,” Annie stops Abed mid-sentence, “Did you say ... boyfriend?”

Abed stops typing. He tends to write while he talks to Annie if any ideas come to him. So he’s always writing.

“Yeah.” he says offhandedly, still looking past his webcam at his screen, “Why, is that a problem?”

“What?!” Annie exclaims, waving her hands, “No! No, no, no, no, no, not a problem. It’s just I didn’t know you were -”

“Bisexual.” Abed supplies, “I never thought I needed to mention it.” Abed then looks right at his webcam, seemingly bemused. Well, as bemused as Abed can look. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”

“Oh?” From the way he says it he says that she knows he means Annie specifically and not the Study Group as a whole. Annie doesn’t really know why Abed thinks she, specifically, would have noticed by now. But hey, she supposes, if they’re talking about it.

“Well. Me too!”

“Really?”

“Surprised?”

“No, it’s cool.” Abed’s lips quirk up. He pauses and goes back to tapping on his keyboard, “Cool, cool, cool.”

...

Annie learns the boyfriend's name is David. That he worked in the props department on Abed’s first show, that he can cook and draw and doesn’t like heights and likes the 12th Inspector Spacetime and that he’s seemingly perfect. So Annie can’t really work her head around how vaguely apathetic Abed seems when he mentions him. It’s vaguely reminiscent of when Abed explains Inception, which doesn’t really make sense to Annie because Inception is complicated and serious and (in her opinion) boring and (in Abed’s opinion) bloated. Which, in her opinion, shouldn’t be how you talk about your boyfriend.

But then again, it’s Abed. Maybe this is just how he does the relationship thing. She decides not to bug Abed about it, so she just listens when Abed talks about him every once and a while and likes every Instagram post - of which there are so, so many.

Abed probably posts more photos of his boyfriend than he actually talks about him. David eating ice cream, little trinkets David makes him, David in a Kiss The Cook apron. It’s getting a little too sickly sweet, even for Annie’s taste. Maybe that’s Abed’s love language, Social Media Displays Of Affection.

“I mean, look at this guy!” Jeff swipes with abandon through Abed’s account, “I’m pretty sure he only got this account to post about him. I don't know what movie it's supposed to be from - Ah! See!” He shoves his phone towards Annie. David building a sandcastle on the beach captioned simply “Beach Episode.”

“This!” Jeff gestures at David’s torso, “This is not human!”

“Jealous much, Jeff?” Britta buts in, poking her head in between Annie and Jeff’s for a better view.

“No!” He says unconvincingly. He pauses for a second, scrutinizing the photo once more before putting his phone away. “Well, maybe. Of that routine, I guess...”

Annie knows that look. That I’m Putting A Case Together In My Head look that Jeff gets sometimes. Annie has a bad feeling that it isn't about what kind of protein shakes David lives off of.

“Whatever.” Jeff says, standing up “Are you guys ready?”

Annie wasn't in the least bit surprised when The Dean (fully encouraged by Jeff, though he’d never admit it) organized a Greendale Class Reunion only a year after she and Abed left town. She was only surprised Abed had said he’d meet them there and hadn't insisted on documenting the whole experience, despite the cliche of it all. In hindsight, she should have suspected something was up, huh.

When they arrive at the reunion, which is essentially just a normal Greendale dance with a big HAPPY REUNION banner up and maybe five other actual Greendale graduates. And Abed and his surprisingly ripped boyfriend.

“Oh my gosh, you’re Annie!” David’s handshake is firm and overly confident. Annie thinks that if she were Abed’s father she would be reassured and impressed by this, which makes the skeptical look in Jeff’s eye when David shakes his hand a little suspicious to Annie.

“Abed’s told me all about you guys, it’s so great to finally meet you.” David says, all shiny white teeth and nervous energy. His hand returns to his side only to find Abed’s.

“Oh has he?” Jeff chuckles back. Jeff seems to be trying to communicate something to Abed with his eyes while he continues his polite small talk with the boyfriend.

David seems to Annie exactly like he was on Abed’s Instagram, picture-perfect. At face value David is sincere and earnest, Annie can’t help but compare him to a Disney prince.

“You know,” she tells him, in a desperate attempt to make friendly conversation once she’s been left alone with David, “If you hurt Abed, we're gonna have to kill you.” David laughs genuinely and Annie laughs along, glad that David doesn’t know exactly how accurate that statement is.

“I swear, I won’t harm a hair on his head.” David places one hand over his heart, smiling in tongue in cheek chivalry. He never seems to stop smiling, Annie thinks. David shrugs and relaxes. He leans forward a little like he’s telling Annie a secret. “If anything, sometimes I think he’s gonna hurt me or something.”

“Oh?” Annie says through her smile.

“Well, I mean, you know Abed,” David says, “Somedays you look at him and he’s just... somewhere else, I guess? Like he’s not in the same room with you.” Annie knows that look all too well, she nods along. “Or he gets that sad look sometimes? I don’t know sometimes I feel like there’s something he’s not telling me.” Annie... isn’t too sure she knows that look as well but nods along anyway.

“Yeah, that’s our Abed!” she says, “He’s a mystery! He still cares, don’t worry. He just shows it in his own way.”

She’s sure it’s just a side effect of oncoming maturity or homesickness that may or may not be afflicting Abed. What does David know, anyway! They’ve only been dating a few months anyway, right? It’s not like anything is actually wrong.

“Did anything about that seem a little wrong to you?” Jeff says on the ride back to his place.

“Yeah, I’m glad you said something. The banners aren’t as good now that we’re gone -”

“No, I mean Abed and Captain Cardboard.” Jeff says, “Nothing off?”

“Nope.” Annie says, “Nothing off!”

“This doesn't seem at all out of character for Abed? The whole domesticity shtick?”

“I think domesticity is a good look on Abed.” Annie says with a tight-lipped smile, “It’s about time we all grew up.”

“Abed though?” Jeff sneers, “He gave me a monologue about settling down tonight. I think he said white picket fence like five times. And he was smiling way too much -”

“Jeff, if this is a mistake then maybe we should just let Abed make a mistake!” Annie says, “Isn’t that part of maturing, making mistakes?”

Jeff concedes to Annie, with a Winger Speech on just wanting to make sure his friends are happy that descends into another short-lived rant on how David must be on steroids. He promises to drop the whole issue and swears to himself to find out David’s fitness secret.

...

Jeff is true to his word, which Annie is glad for. She, Britta, and Jeff live through a Holiday Dinner hosted by the lovely couple without so much as a peep from Jeff about how irritatingly domestic they seem. Not a word about how David doesn’t seem to know who Troy is, or how Abed’s smile seems vaguely artificial at times, or how Abed seems a little too eager to go do the dishes in the kitchen alone by himself and -

Okay, fine, maybe Annie thought Abed seemed a little off! He was probably just having an off day, the holidays are weird for Abed sometimes, they could’ve all been claymation and he just didn’t mention it for all Annie knows.

And at the end of the day, Annie likes David, she decides. He’s handsome, nice, gets Abed to eat things other than buttered noodles, and he really, really likes Abed. So when they announce on their one year anniversary that they’re getting married, Annie is ecstatic and even more ecstatic to be Abed’s Best Woman.

She’s so proud of Abed, being all grown up! Settling down! She really just wants Abed to be happy.

So here they are on the big day. She’s prepared her Best Woman Speech over the course of three months, Britta agreed to the teal dresses, Shirley’s cake has miraculously not melted in the LA heat.

She checks her watch. 5 minutes till showtime, time to get the groom.

When she walks into Abed’s dressing room, he is looking at himself in the mirror, wide-eyed and frozen. She knows she can’t blame herself for the wedding going sideways when it does.

“Hey, buddy?” she asks, closing the door quietly behind her, “You okay?”

“Fine.” he says, without looking away from himself, “F-I-N-E. I think I’m freaking out. Actually.”

“Cold feet?” Annie says lightly, carefully grinning in a way she hopes is comforting. Abed turns to face her, expression unchanging.

“Possibly.” Abed says. He freezes again, as if his whole body lags for a second, and then begins pacing.

“Well, I mean,” Annie says, through her teeth still set in a smile, trying to keep her tone, “You want to marry David right?”

Abed stops pacing, facing her but effectively looking straight through her “Yes. And no. Yes and no. Mostly no, I guess.”

“Oh.” Annie lets her smile melt away, “Well. Then. Um? Don’t?”

“But I have to walk down the aisle.” Abed states.

“Why?”

Abed sits, still not looking at Annie. “I’ve made assumptions, Annie. Some logical leaps in regards to characters and what they would do in hypothetical situations, I’ve run the simulations. And I’m beginning to worry that I have misjudged some ... certain characters.” Abed closes his eyes like he’s concentrating on a scene playing behind his eyelids.

“Um, Abed?” Annie asks carefully. She feels like she's walking on broken glass here. “What characters are we talking about?”

Abed’s eyes snap open. “Annie. Have you ever considered that your endgame,” Abed says that one word with so much weight it almost frightens Annie. “Your endgame was actually right under your nose the whole time.” he continues, “And you were just too foolish to realize it?” He looks at Annie desperately, like she might actually know the answers, or what she’s even asking about. Annie looks back, now eyes wide with confusion because what does this even mean, does Abed love someone else and - Oh.

“Abed, I’m flattered, really.” she says softly, “But if this is about me, then -”

“Annie, how many times do I have to tell you I’m not interested in you romantically.” Abed says bluntly. Okay, that kinda hurt, but the bullet has been dodged.

Abed tries to shrug and lean back in his seat, but it’s stilted and artificial. “In the movies these things always happen at the eleventh hour, last minute, so I shouldn’t be worried. Right? Except...” Abed trails off, eyes glazing overlooking right past Annie. He blinks, shakes his head, and focuses his gaze right at Annie. “I don’t think he’s coming.”

Annie frowns. Oh. Troy.

Troy was still at sea. Even after the incident with the pirates, Troy kept on with his quest for Pierce’s fortune. Annie couldn’t blame him, there were millions on the line. But it didn’t mean she didn’t miss him any less.

And it certainly didn’t mean it didn’t hurt when he said he couldn’t come back for his best friend’s wedding.

“Abed, I know it’s awful that Troy’s not coming.” she sits down across from him, “But he wouldn’t want you to ruin your big day -”

“No, Troy has to ruin it.”

“He... Abed, what?”

“It’s a classic trope, Annie. Wedding Crashers, The Princess Bride, Shrek.” Abed rattles off quickly, now in sharp focus, “Speak now or forever hold your peace.” When Abed sees that Annie still isn’t getting it he continues, “Troy needs to stop the wedding. He has to. He’s too emotionally reckless to not, I’ve run the simulations... Troy stops the wedding, confesses his love to me, and we sail into the sunset.”

“...Abed.” Annie begins, trying to form words. All she can get out is “WHAT?”

“I’m sorry to info-dump, but it was the only way to get the information across.”

“You and? Troy and?! Did you two?!”

“No, we weren’t dating. But we were in love.”

“How... How did I miss that!?”

“Unclear.”

“But... David?”

“David is great, he’ll be fine when I leave him at the altar, an audience would probably take his side over mine and I don’t blame them. I was using him to get Troy to come back, so.”

“Abed! That’s so-”

“Manipulative?” Abed sighed, “Annie. People do crazy things when they’re in love.”

“Awwwww,” Annie smiled, “Wait. No. Abed, this is messed up. More than usual.”

“No, no, you’re not getting the whole picture, Annie...” Abed paused, thinking for a second, “I can explain everything. Annie, I have a bad feeling this is a framing device.”

“What?”

“A plot device used in a typically futile attempt to make you care about the story by showing you where the characters end up later. I’m not usually a fan, this one may work though.” Abed gestured for Annie to sit down across from him. “I’m going to need you to flashback with me. I’ll be narrating of course.”

Annie sat down confidently. If this is what her friend needed, then flashback it is then. “Alright.”

Abed closed his eyes. Annie followed suit.

“Ah, where to start.” he said, “I was born March 24 -”

“Abed? Maybe skip to the relevant stuff?”

“You’re right. Don’t want a bloated run time.”


	2. The Greatest Romantic Comedy Of All Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abed takes Annie on a trip down memory lane, in which Troy likes rom-coms and Abed realizes that he's in too deep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole chapters functions as an Abed flashback monologue, so it's First Person Abed. Interjections are variously in italics and bold, depending on who's interjecting.

Troy would tell you we met when I asked him to join the study group, but that’s not when I met Troy.

On the first day of class I dropped my pencil, when I reached down to pick it up Troy had already grabbed it.

_Let me guess, your hands brushed?_

They did but that’s not the point.

Troy gave me my pencil back. I thanked him and he smiled at me. You’ve seen Troy smile, you already know it’s more of a grin or possibly a beam of sunlight than just a smile. It was a more genuine smile than I had seen in any movie.

_Awww!_

Annie, please, not during the flashback.

He seemed to think better of smiling, because he dropped it from his face quickly and went back to his notes. Of course he did, he was a jock. Guys like him used to push guys like me into lockers. But Troy proved to be far more than his cliche.

“Hey. Some friends of mine are starting a study group, if you’re interested.”

“...Cool... Who are you?”

“Abed Nadir. Is that a yes?”

“Troy Barnes. I’ll think about it.”

I didn’t believe Troy and I would actually be friends until Halloween, but it was becoming clear that what I originally thought would be a Jock and Nerd Dynamic had turned into your classic Bromance Trope. We ate candy corn between the shelves until 1:36 a.m. I was looking at the clock when I thought, “Well, if I stay till 2, then I might as well stay all night. And we can’t stay up talking all night.” I didn’t ask myself why not at the time, but I told Troy I should head to bed, all the same. “I have class in the morning.”

“Damn, man, me too.” he said. I saw a lightbulb turn on over his head, “Can I crash with you?” and then a second lightbulb, “Sleepover!”

It was a bad idea. “Sure.” I said. I even let him have the top bunk.

I would say the romantic subplot started sometime halfway through our first year. In the aftermath of Jeff’s Legendary Strip Pool Game.

“Nice, man.” Troy sidled up behind me as we both watched a girl walk away, leaving me with her number. Troy used to do this thing where he would take my hand in the hallway to get my attention, which was oddly intimate but I didn’t question it at the time. I hadn’t had a friend as close as Troy before. He stopped doing it after season one, I didn't bother to ask him why he stopped, I probably should have. “Are you gonna, like, call her?”

“No, I don’t think so.” I pocketed the number all the same. “She was nice, but I’m not really interested.” Troy seemed confused or unhappy somehow, as far as I could tell. “We can watch a rom-com tonight, though, if you’re really that disappointed I don’t have a love life.”

“What? I’m not, like, mad at you or whatever. I just want you to be happy. I guess.” Troy said, “...Can we still watch that movie though?”

Movie nights became a regular thing after that night, but that night specifically is important. I let Troy pick. The Wedding Singer seems ironic now, in hindsight. I mean it’s not incredibly on the nose or anything, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it good foreshadowing, but ironic nevertheless.

I expected Troy to like it for the comedy, it’s an Adam Sandler classic after all. But he seemed just as, if not more so, invested in the romance.

“ROBBIE, NO!” he shouted at the screen as Sandler’s character assumed his love interest actually wanted to marry her fiance.

Why are you so upset?” I asked, “They’re going to end up together anyway. It’s the formula.”

“I don’t know, man. It’s frustrating! They’re obviously so into each other! Why can’t they just talk!”

“It’s the formula.” I repeated, “The typical miscommunication plotline. It’s trope-y, but it’s more accurate than you’d expect I think.”

“No way, dude, if I was Robbie I’d just tell her that Glenn is a douchebag and that I loved her.” Troy said, before turning back to the screen, “It’s THAT EASY, ROBBIE.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “I didn’t think you’d enjoy this movie that much.”

Troy smiled and leaned in closer (a little too close), “Don’t tell anyone. But I really like chick flicks. They’re just like... I don’t know why, I just think they’re sweet... or something. I guess.” he shrugged, trying to brush it off, but he didn’t move.

I remember I didn’t move a muscle. I didn’t want to create any possibility that he may move away. And he didn’t, he remained leaning into my shoulder the rest of the film until Robbie started singing to Julia on the airplane and Troy started crying. I guess he didn’t want me to see, because he moved away.

“We should do this more often,” he sniffled as the credits rolled.

“Do you want to watch another?” I asked, but I was already reaching for the stack of DVDs on the coffee table. Troy did want to watch another. And another. And another. It was nearly midnight when we had exhausted my modest collection of romantic comedies, which was a meager four back then. Troy broadened my taste with time.

By the time the credits were rolling on When Harry Met Sally Troy had fallen asleep on my shoulder, despite him begging me to keep him awake through to the end.

“You know they will, though. It’s-”

“It’s the formula I know, it’s just...” he had said through a yawn, “I want to know they make it.”

And sitting there on the couch, with Troy drooling on my shoulder, I knew I was going to fall in love with Troy. I hadn’t yet, but the inevitability was creeping up on me. I had seen these scenarios over and over and I knew all paths led to me being in love with Troy. And if I was right Troy would be falling in love with me as well.

The little voice in my head (that sounds suspiciously like Jeff) made sure to remind me that ‘This is real life. This isn’t scripted.’ But some of the best movies go off script. And I knew the truth: life imitates art.

_Did he?_

Did he what?

_Did he fall in love with you?_

Spoilers.

_Abed!_

There were a lot of cliches. The hand holding, movie nights, falling asleep on shoulders. Classic friends to lovers. But there was always the Ducky of it all.

_Ducky?_

“What are you doing?”

“Just giving things a finale vibe.”

“Well, how’s this for a finale vibe? Pierce asked me to move in with him... in his mansion.”

I couldn’t move in with Troy, it was far too soon in either of our character developments, a complete jumping of shark, and I told Troy so. But truthfully, if Troy and I lived together, he would’ve grown annoyed with me. We were best friends, but I didn’t trust him to have actual patience with me yet. It would eliminate our romantic subplot completely. I would be Ducky.

_What does that mean, Abed?_

Ducky. The goofy best friend to Molly Ringwald in Pretty In Pink. He’s in love with her, she’s in love with the cool guy, it’s your classic love triangle. Typically the center of the triangle (do triangles have centers? It doesn’t matter) would come to their senses and realize that the best friend who has always been there for them is the person they really want to be with. But the final product ends with Molly Ringwald kissing the cool guy from the right side of the tracks and leaves Ducky to dance with some random girl, so you don’t feel as bad for him. But the verdict is clear. Ducky is weird. Too weird and goofy. And therefore, doesn’t get the girl. How could I expect to get Troy if I was his Ducky?

“If we moved in together we would jump the shark, that would end it.”

“Well, maybe you’re ending it.” he said, fingers digging into his giant cookie, “Oh, and for the record, there was an episode of Happy Days where a guy literally jumped over a shark, and it was the best one!”

I wish I had said something that night. Invoked the classic season finale confessional, kick start the romantic plot line for the upcoming season and begin what probably would’ve been years of off and on dating and domestic bickering and “We were on a break!” but I didn’t. I wonder what that timeline is like.

Troy stormed out and I felt awful, obviously. I didn’t want Troy to be mad, even if it resolved within the run time. I felt guilty for longer than I should have, it’s true, so maybe that’s why I was so eager to go along with his idea for that summer.

I was working for my dad for the summer, but Troy found that he didn’t even need to work. Pierce kept his fridge stocked, let Troy take whatever he wanted and gave him a place to stay. Unfortunately for Troy that meant he had a lot of free time to spend with Pierce. When Troy found that was not his ideal way to spend the summer, he began to visit me at work frequently. He would wander in half way through my shift and sit at a table in the corner until any other customers cleared out. As soon as the door swung shut, Troy would be at the counter telling me whatever bizarre thing Pierce had said that day or that he had found some old movie around the mansion worthy of movie night among any number of other random thoughts he had throughout the day.

One day I had been spitballing ideas for a new project since the Community College Chronicles was on a summer hiatus. Troy nodded along as I considered out loud beginning a new Kick-Puncher.

“Yeah, but we did that already, man... maybe we should try out something different.”

“Dabble in some new genres.” I said, “Interesting concept. What did you have in mind?”

“Hey, but why don’t we, like, make a rom-com?” Troy asked, leaning over the counter. “Or something... I bet we could make the best rom-com ever... I don’t know. Or Kick-Puncher. I’m down for whatever.”

It was a bad idea. “No, I like it.” I said, “It’s a challenge. I’ve never dabbled in romantic comedy before, only subplots. Let’s try it?”

“Really, man?” Troy grinned, “Sweet.” And we sealed it with the handshake.

I immediately realized my mistake in agreeing. I didn’t want to let Troy down, but romance was not exactly my strong suit. I can stop the tropes from a mile away, but it didn’t mean I could enact them efficiently, not back then (and I’m starting to wonder about now). There was a reason I had kept it confined to subplots, one off episodes, and the like. I decided to play it safe, start with what I thought Troy would like. So the first draft of the script was, well, as Troy poignantly put it:

“Man, in the nicest way possible, this is really

“What? What’s wrong with it.” I asked him, peering over his shoulder at the script, “Oh, I see. I know prom is never actually that big of a deal in real life, but-”

“No, no, no, Abed.” he said, handing my laptop back to me, “It’s just... they just kiss.”

“Oh. Should they do more than-”

“No! Abed, I mean they just get together so easily. She’s a cheerleader! He’s a nerd! What about the cliques? She thinks she’s way better than him! He thinks she’s smarter than her!”

“But you said it would be better if they would just talk about their feelings. That they would be able to work it out if they just-”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it good. There has to be...” he searched for the words, decided he couldn’t find them, and continued, “It’s not exciting if they just start dating. You know?”

“There are no stakes.” I said, “No romantic tension.”

“Yeah, what you said.” Troy nodded very seriously, “And like that part where Amy and George kiss and she goes ‘I’m going to kiss you now’ how is that romantic?”

“What do you suggest?”

“What about, like, ‘you’re not lame to me’ something like that,” he said, I quickly typed it into the script, “Oh! Or,” he straightened up, putting on a sultry falsetto, “‘Lucky for you, I think nerds are cute.’” and then dropped it, “Yep, write that down.”

“Done.”

“This is gonna be the best rom-com ever.”

Troy was right.

_Nerds are cute?_

Okay, Troy was right on two accounts.

It isn’t a good romance if there isn’t any tension, no push and pull, no clumsy miscommunications. And it’s hard to miss that me and Troy have had more than our share now. All the build up is there.

_But?_

But Troy always wanted to make it to the end. So I know he’ll come. Yeah. He’ll come. What time is it? We should wrap this up. Troy has a wedding to crash.

_Abed, you’re dodging the question._

Which one? You ask a lot of those.

_You know which one, Abed. Does Troy-_

**Hey, guys, what the hell is happening? We got a wedding to live through.**

Jeff?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y'all! I hope you guys are enjoying this, because it's only gonna get more convoluted from here! If you liked it hit me with a kudos or a comment and thank you for reading!


	3. I’ll Allow It, But Watch Yourself McCoy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeff calls court into session.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *john mulaney voice* I’ll allow it,,,, bUT wAtCh YouRSelF McCoY

Jeff isn’t exactly big on weddings, but that’s already well known. What isn’t as well known is how much he doesn’t like David. 

This is mostly because he knows when to keep his mouth shut. He knows very well if you express a dislike for one’s significant other, if/when that wedding comes along you suddenly begin to see a lot less of the newly weds. And as much as Jeff may try to seem indifferent to most people, Abed is family. 

Besides, Jeff looks great in a tux.

But Jeff! the voice in his head that sounds kinda like Annie would say, But Jeff! What is so wrong with David anyway?

Well, first of all, he’s unnaturally ripped. A fact of which Jeff swears he’s not resentful (he is). It’s simply unreasonable.

Secondly, and more importantly, David is normal. This shouldn’t be wrong or a complaint he should have about David at all, but David is wildly and bizarrely normal and it rubs Jeff the wrong way. Mostly because Abed is anything but normal. 

Jeff loves his family (don’t tell them that, though, they’d never let him hear the end of it) and with that comes this instinct to be protective of them. The night of the Class Reunion, Britta compared him to a mother hen. He told her to shut up and crossed the floor to where Abed was standing by the snack table.

“So, uh, David seems...” Jeff smiled in a way he was hoping wouldn’t come off as totally fake, “Very nice.”

“I knew you wouldn’t like him.” Abed said, immediately. Okay, that’s fine Jeff has no problem being honest.

“What? Noooo...” 

“Britta already told me.” Abed said, “She thinks I’m trying to rebel.”

“Are you? You know I’m not your mom, right?”

“I know, but Britta likes to say I imprinted on you like a baby bird.” Abed said, turning back to fill up his plate with only the pretzels from the bowl of chex mix.

“Did you?”

“It’s whatever. You think David is hiding something. Because he’s so nice.”

“Yeah. So what is it?”

“It’s nothing.” Abed said, with more inflection than Jeff had come to expect from Abed, “Jeff, David is a perfectly nice and normal man. And he likes me. What’s wrong with that? It's time I settled down, don’t you think?”Jeff almost spit out his scotch at that, “No more hijinks, quirky adventures, or a third synonym for me. Just a white picket fence and David and a couple kids.”

Jeff almost pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. “You’re joking, right?”

“Why would I be?” The way Abed smiled when he said that was how Jeff knew that this wasn’t a dream or a joke. God, he had let Abed out of his sight for a year and he had gone full My Dinner With Abed.

Abed didn’t smile like that the rest of the night, which could only lead Jeff to believe it was... what? A facial tick? A cry for help? Him trying to emotionally connect with Jeff after not seeing him for a year? Oh god, maybe Annie was right. And maybe he should call Abed more.

So he had kept his mouth shut about it for a whole year, which was clearly a mistake cause now he’s at this wedding, looking way better in his tux than he feels about whatever is going on in Abed’s dressing room. 

They were supposed to be on their way down stairs to the chapel already and Annie had left to get Abed to no avail. Five minutes would have been fine, but it had been ten long minutes and Shirley and Britta were getting anxious. Jeff decided he would rather take matters into his own hands than hear Britta try to therapize the situation. 

He didn’t bother knocking when he entered the room and found Abed and Annie, sitting across from each other in two little white plush armchairs, eyes closed but clearly speaking to each other and clearly ready for the wedding they were supposed to start already.

“Did Troy -”

“Hey, guys, what the hell is happening?” he said, “We got a wedding to live through.”

“Jeff?” Abed’s eyes snapped open. Jeff has rarely seen Abed’s eyes that sad.

Annie jumped out of her seat and opened her eyes, letting out a noise that sounded something like a very guilty “eep!” followed by, “Uh! Jeff! Hi!”

Abed’s eyes fluttered open, as if awaking from a stupor, stood up and strode over to Jeff, shaking off whatever funk he seemed to be stuck in, “It’s about time you barged in. I think I need a speech.” he said.

“You sure about that, pretty sure you’re supposed to be getting married uhhh now.” Jeff said, still only halfway through the door, “You guys okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost... Oh god, have you been flashbacking, we’ve talked about this.” 

“Flashbacking? Haha, Whaaat?” Annie said with an unnatural chuckle. Well that answered his question.

Abed paused, apparently thinking over what Jeff just said. He cast a glance over Jeff’s shoulder with something akin to a frown, seeing the rest of his party - Britta and Shirley - whispering fervently to each other in the hallway, before looking back at Jeff. “Close the door.” he said, grimly.

“Abed -”

“Close the door, Jeff!” Annie chimed in harshly, before addly a doe eyed, “Please.”

Jeff, exasperation giving way to burning curiosity, shut the door behind him quickly. When Abed gave him a knowing look, he turned to the door and locked it with an eye roll.

“Okay,” Jeff said, turning back to them, “What the hell. Is going. On.” 

And that’s when the powder keg exploded.

“I’m not getting married, Jeff. It’s all been an elaborate ruse.” 

“Abed is in love with Troy! In! LOVE!” 

“Troy is coming to get me and we’re sailing off into the sunset.” 

“ROMANTICALLY. He thinks Troy is coming to CRASH his WEDDING!” 

“At least I think he is. I’m not sure. According to all the simulations I’ve run he should be.” 

“He’s been in love with Troy the WHOLE TIME! AH?” 

“But I’m sure he will. He wouldn't let me marry someone else, he knows how these things work, Troy would never leave me hanging, he’s my best friend.” 

“I LIVED with them, how did I not KNOW?” 

“My best friend I haven’t spoken to in 3 years. And never told that he's the only person I’ve ever actually loved.” 

“And did Troy love him BACK!? How would I know?!” 

“aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAA”

“THEY’RE JUST MY BEST FRIENDS.” 

“WOAH! TIME OUT. SIT DOWN.” 

And they did so in perfect unison, eyes wide. Annie and Abed really reminded Jeff of the twins from the Shining sometimes. They could give you this identical pleading look like they were just a couple starving victorian orphans asking ‘please, sir, I want some more’ and frankly it was a little disturbing.

Jeff sighed through his nose, hands on hips. Oh god, he must look like such a dad right now. He settled for crossing his arms, which he decided was less ‘I’m not mad, just disappointed’.

“Okay, let me get this straight.” he began flatly.

“I’m not.” 

“How long have you been waiting for that one.”

“A while. Continue.”

“Okay. So what you are telling me is that I helped plan this wedding -”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“I let Britta fill our shared living space with color palettes, put up with her asking me about seating charts and flower arrangements, let you, Ms. Best Woman, test your speech on me every night for a month, and lived through that nightmare of a bachelor party -”

“You can’t blame me for that.” Abed said. 

“Yeah, Jeff,” Annie chimed in, “We don’t know who gave Chang the taser.” 

“And you’re going to tell me now this was a just - what? Some movie plot so Troy will come back to love you?”

“When you say it like that it sounds insane.” Abed said. Jeff may be pretty mad, but he’s not gonna take that bait. “But point taken.” Abed stood up, facing Jeff, “I’m sorry I put you through all this. Both of you.” he added with a tilt of the head towards Annie, “It’s just... I didn’t think Troy would come back unless I did something drastic. I didn’t think I had a choice.”

“Well, this is drastic alright.” Jeff sighed. He was doing a lot of that today. And as much as he’d like to tell Abed off some more, he can’t stay mad when Abed looks this miserable. 

Jeff remembers that Troy used rail against those eyes. ‘If I don’t bring home marshmallows, Abed’s gonna give me The Eyes and he won’t mean to but it’ll make me sad and stuff and then I’ll have to go out later and get them anyway and miss the new Inspector Spacetime and -’ You get the idea. In hindsight he should’ve suspected long term consequences of what was going on with Troy and Abed. Because it was obvious that there was something going on, at least to Jeff. 

“You know what? Everyone will understand. Hell, David will probably thank you for your consideration. I’ll go out there and sort things out. ” Jeff reached for the doorknob, but before he could even touch it Abed’s hand was around his wrist.

“What?” Abed’s brow furrowed, “No. We’re doing the wedding. I’ve just got the pre - runaway groom jitters. Troy knows how these things work.”

“What? Weddings?” Jeff chuckled, pulling his hand from Abed’s grasp, “This is not how weddings work usually.” 

“When the love interest is about to marry the wrong person, the protagonist comes and stops the ceremony to proclaim his love,” Abed said, steamrolling with monotone, “In a desperate attempt to win the love interests affections and it always works.” 

“But... Abed.” Annie said, “Does Troy... ya know.”

“Well, we all know how he feels about Clive Owen.” Abed said, “I thought he was pretty clearly queer-coded.”

“You know what she means, Abed.” Jeff said flatly. When Abed shot Jeff a wide eyed look again, that’s when Jeff realized, really realized, “Wait. You don’t know?” 

Apparently being asked directly was not what Abed wanted, because he clammed up.

“Abed, you don’t know?” Jeff almost laughed. Annie? Of course she wouldn’t see it, she was too close to see the whole picture. But Abed should know well enough. 

Abed, who had Troy giving him cartoon heart eyes on the daily for four years, how could he not know. But now it’s very obvious to Jeff, by the way that Abed is now wringing his hands and looking at the wall right past Jeff’s head, that this whole time he’s been taking a poorly calculated risk. And every time he has proclaimed Troy is coming and Troy loves him he’s been trying to convince himself. 

“Wait.” Annie said, “What? What doesn’t he know?!”

“Abed, Troy is stupid in love with you.” Jeff said, eyebrows hitting his hairline, “The plot twist is that you’re in love with Troy.”

“...It is?”

“Woah, woah, woah, you KNEW?” Annie shrieked, jumping to her feet.

“Troy once got Abed flowers for getting an B on a spelling test.” Jeff began to list on his fingers, “Troy would make up little songs about the shirt Abed was wearing. Troy canceled dates with Britta to play pretend with Abed.” Jeff put both his hands on Abed’s shoulders, “That is not platonic behavior and we both know it. But Troy isn’t coming to stop the wedding that, for all he knows, you agreed to be a part of.”

“Yes, he would.” Abed blinked, “If he does love me that is.”

“He wouldn't if he didn’t know that you loved him, Abed.” Jeff said, “You’re not the authority on Troy... Okay, well maybe you are, but you know as well as I do,” and Jeff knew he shouldn’t say it but, “Troy is a coward,” but he didn’t expect Abed to push him away. “Hey, watch the tux! You know what I meant. If Troy thought you were going to break his heart again, he wouldn’t come.”

“What do you mean again?” Abed asked stiffly.

“Does no one else remember Glee Club?” Jeff was met with the two starving victorian orphans again, “The musical?”

“You said we could never speak of the musical again.” Annie said with a look of horror.

“Well if we’re just going to act like Abed doesn't have a fiancé waiting down stairs maybe we should.” Jeff said grimly. 

From his perspective this could end a handful of ways. 1. Abed goes through with his plan and has to leave David at the altar half way through the wedding when it becomes clear that Troy is not coming. Brutally awkward for everyone involved and Abed will be miserable. 2. Abed is so convinced that Troy will come that he goes through the whole wedding and marries David. Best case scenario, there was a quick and speedy annulment. Worst case, Abed decides he wants to reenact Marriage Story. 3. Abed listened to him and called the wedding off now before things were liable to get messy. But Abed was stubborn and Jeff was never gonna win this game unless he played it by Abed’s rules. Well, if Abed wanted to get cinematic he might as well embrace his own genre. 

Jeff turned to Abed, “The prosecution would like to call the defense to the stand.” 

Abed, who since the musical had been mentioned, had donned a similar look of horror to Annie’s, sat slowly without breaking eye contact with Jeff. “Mr. Nadir. Do you recall when our study group filled in for the Glee Club in 2010.”

“I remember it well.” Abed said, “What about it?”

“Do you recall the musical we were forced to participate in during that period of time.”

“Yes.”

“Please state the name of the musical for the record.” Annie piped up, apparently taking notes.

“Shrack. The Original Musical.” Abed supplied. “It was an illegal production of Shrek the Musical.” Annie jotted it down quickly.

“Are you aware that on opening night you crushed Troy’s heart beneath your size 9 converse sneaker?” Jeff asked in a casual tone.

“Objection!” Annie cried.

“I’ll allow it.” Abed said. Jeff bit his tongue when he felt the instinct to tell Abed that’s not how court works. TV court was never very accurate and neither was Abed’s perception of it. “But watch yourself, McCoy.” Abed finished, his dark eyes dead serious. 

Jeff clasped his hands behind his back. “Mr. Nadir. If that’s so, then why don't you tell us the events of that rehearsal process.” he leaned forward for emphasis, “From your own perspective.”

“That would require one hell of a flashback, Mr. Winger.” 

“I’ll allow it.” Jeff smirked, “But watch yourself, McCoy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you guys enjoy Shrek the Musical because we are about to get DEEP into the greendale illegal production of shrek the musical.  
> Also to all of y’all commenting??? BLESS YOU, y’all keep me going <3


	4. Shrack The Original Musical Part One: I Always Dreamed I'd Get An Ever After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Beginning of the Shrack the Original Musical Narrative Detour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins.  
> Abed Flashback Time, Babey!  
> Annie in italics, Jeff in bold, you know the drill.

The year? 2010. The place? Greendale Community College. Specifically the auditorium.

**Yes, Abed, we know this part.**

Sorry, just setting the scene.

The auditorium was pretty sparsely filled, only around 16 people had shown up for auditions, soon to be a cast of 12 once the serious actors realized that this was a production that was bound to be rife with continuations of interpersonal drama. And then a cast of 11, after Chang broke Todd’s legs so he could claim the role of Farquaad. 

I wouldn’t call us the best Replacement Glee Club, but we were certainly alright. Alright enough for Shrack: The Original Musical, according to Mr. Rad.

The Dean had claimed to find a Copyright Work-Around, “If we just change the title and a few words here and there, it shouldn’t be a huge issue!” Professor Garity and Mr. Rad were just excited to get the go ahead for the Greendale Theatre and Music Departments first and last collaboration on Greendale Community College’s first and last musical production.

“...Shrek - Shrack, that is - is not just a story about a ogre and a donkey and a second but slightly more attractive female ogre.” Mr. Garity had declared at auditions, “It’s a story of love and acceptance, not just from others... but learning how to love and accept ourselves for what we are.” Garity was met by raucous applause from Mr. Rad, standing by his side, his binder full of illegally downloaded sheet music, and The Dean, who was sitting in the corner of the theater, weeping openly by the end of his speech.

“Wow... Wow. Really inspiring, Sean.” Mr. Rad grinned with his mouth - which always seemed to have too many teeth, right? I would always try and count them whenever he smiled because that can’t possibly be a normal amount of teeth, but I lost count every time because I’m too scared of accidentally looking him in the eye. Anyone else experience that? ... No? Anyway.

“Why thank you, Cory.” Garity grinned back. I’m very glad they’re creative partnership didn’t end up working out, there’s nothing more irritating than two creatives stroking each other's egos... Sorry, spoilers.

_We know what happened, Abed._

“Now beware all ye who enter here!” Rad grinned in a way I’m sure was supposed to be joking, but came off as chilling, “Ahaha!” And why did he laugh like that? We should have seen the murder thing coming, huh. “But really, everyone, relax! Me and Professor Garity want you to succeed as badly as you want to! So no worries!” We definitely should have worried.

“I can’t believe we agreed to this.” Jeff muttered from a few seats away, “Who’s up to blow this audition? I wanna walk out of here as ensemble at most.”

“Speak for yourself, Jeff.” Britta said, “Some of us want to push our boundaries! Right, guys?”

“Yeah!” Annie chimed in, “And getting ensemble won’t be any easier than a lead, Jeff. Mr. Garity said there’s no small parts, only small actors.” she grinned.

“That’s just what they tell the people with small parts,” Jeff smirked, “So there will be people to play the small parts.”

“Jeff’s right.” Shirley said, “I better walk out of here with a part worth my time, I have my babies at home and -”

“If you guys don’t stop talking right now I will wrinkle your brain,” Troy said, pouring over the crumpled up papers on his lap, “I can’t focus on my lines if you guys are talking about dumb stuff that doesn’t matter.”

“The show?” Annie whispered to me, nose crinkling a little in confusion.

“He means you stating your character motivations.” I clarified.

“... Barnes, comma, Troy!”

“If I bomb this audition, it's on you.” Troy said, dropping his script and standing from his seat to make his way to the stage. I quickly snatched my speaker from my backpack and followed him into the aisle.

“You have my track ready?” he asked, getting his game face on.

“All set.” I said, fiddling with the wires. 

“Hey, man.” Troy stopped just before the stage, turning back to face me. He offered his hand, placing his other on his chest, and giving me a soft smile, “Wish me luck?”

“Good luck.” my hand met his for the handshake, giving him the smile I had been practicing in the mirror that I hoped would look reassuring and tapping the small speaker against my chest. The smile must have worked because Troy let out a breath he must’ve been holding and climbed the stairs to the stage.

Troy truly had no right to give his audition all that he did, but Troy had become insistent that week that _“if dance is a sport, then theatre is like a triathlon right?”_ and had shown up with a point to prove. The point was thoroughly proven as I could see it, perched on the stage steps, holding the speaker that was playing his tinny karaoke track of ‘Don’t Let Me Go’. Seeing him perform his fully choreographed audition (he wouldn’t hear it when I suggested it may be ‘too much’. _“you’re too much! i’m sorry, i was just frustrated. you’re just enough, abed.”_ ) was more or less dazzling. It had the quality of one of the Glee performances that made you think for a second that the rest of the show wouldn’t be the soap operatic nightmare it was. 

Troy has such an effortless energy, like everything he does is the most important thing in the world and whoever he’s talking to is the most important because as far as he’s concerned it is and they are. Not to mention he surpasses conventional attractiveness - I’m getting off track. The point is it was great. Moving on.

Troy descended from the stage as Rad made some comment about “setting a high bar” that I didn’t really listen to as I was too focused on Troy telling me, “I totally screwed up the triple pirouette but I don’t think they noticed.”

“Totally. You looked awesome.” I said. 

Troy beamed at me as we sat back down. “Thanks... I can take the speaker now, I’ll set up your music. What volume -”

“Bennett, comma, Shirley!”

Shirley was really the dark horse of the auditions.

**Do we really have to go through every single audition?**

_Yeah, it doesn’t really seem relevant to you and Troy._

You said to flashback to the events of the rehearsal process from my perspective, we have to cover the subplots too. 

**No we... Alright, fine.**

Don’t worry, Shirley didn’t have a prominent arch anyway. That was reserved for the likes of “Chang, comma, Ben!”, who’s audition I won’t get into besides the plain fact that he recited the entirety of the Gettysburg Address in an accent I couldn’t place.

“Edison, comma, Annie!” Now here’s where things get interesting.

_Oh god._

Annie and Britta both gave... auditions. I wasn’t paying attention exactly. During Annie’s, Troy and I were preparing for my audition and during Britta’s, we were discussing how my audition went (my audition itself isn’t too important, but it was certainly good. i’m a natural performer). Of course, other auditions came and went, here and there, but during those Troy and I were talking about the new Cougar Town. I do remember this last one though.

“Winger, comma, Jeff!” 

Jeff took the stage with feet of lead, took center with a grimace, and gave the most dead inside performance of ‘Build A Wall’ you’ve ever seen. 

Unfortunately, it was perfect.

“God dammit!” Jeff exclaimed at the cast list the next day.

“Face it, Jeff,” I said, “Your resentful and cynical nature made you a shoe-in for Shrack. You dug your own grave.”

“Shut -” Jeff began, swinging around to face me. He stopped himself, realizing how much of a Shrack he was being, and forced a smile, “...Whatever.” and sulked off as Troy began a strange high school fight song under his breath as he looked at the cast list.

“One, two, Santa’s elves, the world will end in 2012. ABED.”

“We did it?” I stepped up beside him to see the list.

“We did it.” It was right there in black and white, Troy as Donkey and me as Pinocchio, all according to plan. We did our handshake and Troy turned to the small crowd surrounding the cast list.“Read it and weep, fellas! WE run this school!”

“Don’t rub it in.” I muttered as I led him away.

“But I won’t rub it in!” Troy shouted at the group again, “Hey do you think Garity and Rad would let me do the show without a shirt?” he said turning back to me and letting himself be led away.

“Hey!” Britta griped, “Why aren’t me and Annie on here?”

“Yeah, and who’s playing Fiona?” Annie said, peeking over Britta’s shoulder.

“That would because,” said Mr. Rad appearing from seemingly out of nowhere, “We will be holding callbacks for the role of Fiona.” he handed the two women audition sides with a toothy too white grin, “You ladies were just so dang good, we wanted to see you audition again so we could make a final decision. Could you come by after classes today?”

“Oh!” Annie blushed, “Well! Sure! Thanks!”

Britta nodded, which seemed to content Mr. Rad as he disappeared again into seemingly nowhere.

“Can you believe this?” Britta said, “They’re trying to pit us against each other so we’ll act harder.”

“What? No! They wouldn’t do that to us on purpose. We’re just so good they couldn’t decide!” Annie said incredulously, “And for what it’s worth, I would never turn against you over a silly musical!” she lied.

_Hey!_

It’s true. 

What was supposed to be one callback turned into three and what was Britta and Annie’s female solidarity, turned into rivalry. Well, a particularly one-sided rivalry seeing as Britta didn’t seem to care and Annie seemed to care a lot. It’s probably because... well it doesn’t really matter. After their trial by callback, they were told the final decision would be announced at the first read-through.

“Britta, I want you to know,” Annie said with a faux earnest as I joined them on their way into the theater, “Whoever they give the role to? I’ll just be excited to do a show with you.”

“Aw, Annie. That’s sweet of you to say!” Britta smiled, a little surprised, before walking into the theater.

“Poor Britta.” Annie said with a smirk as soon as the door closed on Britta, “She doesn’t even know.” 

“Doesn’t know what?” I asked, but Annie was already following her into the auditorium. Before I could follow her in turn, Troy called after me to wait up and proceeded to return a cardigan I thought I lost in the study room a week ago (you remember the purple one I used to have? it has long since been claimed by the back of my closet with the other clothes i no longer wear, due to it having five separate barbecue sauce stains on it, all of which were troy caused). I didn’t think of the implications at the time, but I do now and often.

When Troy and I finally entered the theatre, The Dean was standing on the stage appealing to the meager cast and Garity and Rad were nowhere in sight.

“...Unfortunately, Professor Garity and Mr. Rad will not be able to join us on our creative journey.” he said, “They had a creative dispute over the casting of a certain role I won’t mention!” he glanced at Annie and Britta withe a wince, “That led to a creative physical altercation and long story short, they have been suspended from teaching until after winter break.”

“Can you suspend teachers?” Jeff spoke up as we sat down in the row behind him.

“Well, I suspended them, Jeffrey, so you tell me.” The Dean said with a winsome smile, “The point is that I couldn’t possibly let this show be left hanging, soooooo...” he patted his legs to mimic a drum roll, “I will be your director!” This announcement was met with scattered claps, brutal silence, and Jeff muttering “dear god”.

“But wait.” Annie chuckled forcibly, “Then who _is_ playing Fiona?”

“Well, they never _did_ decide that and I can’t possibly make you go through all those auditions again, that would be cruel of me!” The Dean said, “So I thought we could leave this up to the fates!” he pulled out a coin from his pocket, “Heads it’s Annie, tails it’s Britta!”

“But, wait!” Annie frowned, “Isn’t this taking all our talent - I mean hard work - out of the equation?”

“You ladies both seem perfectly qualified.” The Dean said in a way that I’m sure was supposed to be comforting but was just vaguely patronizing, “This really is just the fairest way!” and before Annie could object again, the coin had been flipped. “Tails! Britta, that’s you! Congrats!” I could see Annie’s nails dig into her arm rest. The Dean tried to start a clap, but no one else seemed to follow. “Alright! Lets start a-reading through! I’ll be assigning more roles as we go through...”

As the read-through wrapped up, Troy leaned over, nudging me with his shoulder. “Hey, do you think I can crash with you tonight?” he asked in hushed tones while The Dean wrapped up, “Pierce has been practicing his one line by shouting it into a mirror and I don’t need to hear Pierce learn his new lines tonight.”

“Sure.” I said, “Shrek movie marathon?”

It was that night over a cup of special drink, halfway through Shrek 2, that me and Troy came up with an idea; we decided we would understudy each other, just in case of an emergency like if one of us was having an allergic reaction or fighting ninjas. Not specifically that, those are just examples. 

As rehearsals kicked off, Troy was spending practically every night in my dorm after rehearsals, so we could trade blocking and give each other notes. After the show closed, we couldn’t kick the habit. 

And after winter break it only escalated, the sweatshirt he left in my room by accident one night after rehearsal became five he kept there on purpose even though he didn’t say it, I kept the top bunk ready for him just in case he decided to crash and often ended up sleeping on the bottom bunk even when he didn’t as if I was still hoping he’d wander in when I was already in bed half-asleep. Moving in together over the summer seemed like the next natural step at that point, a natural character development.

But it began with those late nights, running our lines together in perfect unison.

**Mr. Nadir, may I ask which of you came up with the idea of understudying?**

Well... it must’ve been Troy. Yes, that’s right.

He had set down my cup in front of me (perfectly mixed, troy always made the best special drink) and said “Hey, Abed, I’ve been thinking... you know, in case something happens to one of us, like one of us is being attacked by a vampire or something, we should understudy each other - that’s what it’s called right? - we should understudy each other!”

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool.”

**So Troy pitched a plan that involved you two spending every night together.**

Yes... You’re just looking at me, Jeff. I don’t know what you expect me to -

Oh.

**There it is.**

I... This recontextualizes a lot for me.

I thought I had lucked out, that I just stumbled into a situation where I could spend my nights with the guy I was falling for and transitioning seamlessly into friends to lovers. I thought that this is when I could prove to him how compatible we were as people. I had no clue he had already known and to what extent he knew.

“Like this?” We were running choreography one night, I forget who’s specifically. I had taken a pose that Troy called a “soft freeze”.

“No, no, no,” Troy stood up from the couch, approaching me, “See you don’t actually want your arm to be straight, it looks too rigid.” Troy said. He stood behind me and placed his hands gently on my arm, guiding me gently into the correct position, “You want to relax it a little, slightly bent elbow.” he said (i could feel his breath on my neck as he spoke), and switched to repositioning my other arm, “And curve down a little bit. Like you’re holding a big beach ball.”

“Cool.” I glanced at him over my shoulder, turning my head slightly. I remember if I turned my head just an inch more, I could have kissed him. 

_And you didn’t?_

It would’ve been too soon. Jumping the shark.

“Cool, cool, cool.”

Troy met my gaze as I looked at him, with a smile. “You’re a natural at this, you know?” he said, “You’re like a swan.”

“Because I have a long neck?”

“Cause you’re all graceful and... and stuff.”

“Oh.” I said softly, “Thanks.”

_And you DIDN’T KISS HIM?_

I was scared. Okay? What if I had scared him away. If I had jumped that shark there would be no coming back from that, he would never consider me a love interest afterwards, and I would just be an abandoned plot thread to him. 

So, no, I didn’t kiss him. 

_Aww, Abed._

Read the room, Annie.

Rehearsals under The Dean’s direction were chaotic, yes, but generally had a fun atmosphere.

He kinda just let us all run wild, taking liberties with our characters and the script to our hearts content. 

He arrived at the first blocking rehearsal with a costume rack (apparently he just had them lying around) and insisted that to truly immerse ourselves in Shrack, we should rehearse in our costumes right off the bat. Luckily I have great legs and effortlessly rocked the Pinnochio lederhosen. He let Troy decide his costume should, instead of the full costume, be the pants and just a vest with no shirt underneath. Though it didn’t make a lot of sense to me, Troy defended with “There is no reason Donkey shouldn’t be hot.” Who could argue with that. That was hardly the most controversial costuming choice anyway.

“See, I was thinking that maybe I shouldn’t do the green face paint.” Jeff told The Dean later in the rehearsal process, with a manufactured artistic gaze, “It could really help us dodge those pesky copyright laws, but it could really make a statement to the audience. I want to do a more human Shrack take, you know? Really let the audience know... we are all Shrack.” The Dean wiped away a tear and agreed, of course. But Jeff did look silly in the full Shrek headpiece with his tan scowling face sticking out in the middle. 

**No need to remind me.**

We couldn’t afford the Dragon puppet, so The Dean settled for dressing Shirley up as a dragon. He wanted to fly her in from the ceiling for her scenes, but Shirley gave him that scary mom look and he dropped that pretty quickly. 

I’m still pretty sure Britta’s costume was a children’s Halloween costume, because while it may have fit, if a little snugly, on her upper body, it was far too short and the hem line hit her knees. Annie made some pointed comments on how the costume would have fit her better at first, but once she saw her own costume that stopped quickly.

“Abed! Troy! Look” she spun around in her purple tutu, the spitting image of the Sugar Plum Fairy, “I’m like a ballerina!” she beamed. And she was right, she did.

_Awww._

We commandeered the bathrooms by the theater to be dressing rooms. The audience would have to use the bathrooms a whole hallway away during intermission, but that was their problem. 

After a month, we were rapidly approaching tech week ( _“more like hell week.”_ troy liked to say). 

“We should do one run as each other.” I said one day on our way to rehearsal, “You as Pinnochio and me as Donkey. So we know the plan works.”

“I don’t know, man,” Troy said, “I’m still not sure about my falsetto.”

“You’re falsetto is great. You shouldn’t feel insecure about it.” I told him as we approached the ‘dressing rooms’.

Troy placed his hand on the door to push it open, looked over at me with a smile. “Thank you.” he said in his falsetto. It was a very good falsetto.

For that rehearsal we switched costumes, to be fully immersive. Troy and I were about the same size and no one really even seemed to notice we had switched. Or they didn’t mention it.

**We didn’t mention it.**

“The dance break in ‘I’m A Believer’,” I said, shrugging on the vest. I do have to admit, the vest sans shirt combo is very freeing if a little chilly, “Is that spin -“

“The chaine.” Troy corrected, affixing the long plastic nose to his face in his reflection.

“Is that a double or a triple?”

“Double -“ he turned to face me, content with his wooden nose at last, and seemed to freeze in place at the sight of my costume.

“What? Am I missing something?” 

“No, it’s just - Abed, you’re - um...” Troy looked up at the ceiling, I figured there must be a bug up there or something. He gets easily distracted by things sometimes, but I didn’t see anything. “Um. Don’t forget the ears.” he said, regaining focus.

“Right. Thanks.” I secured the repurposed easter bunny ears to my head with a nod, “Cool... Cool, cool, cool.” 

“Totally.” Troy nodded back, finally looking down. All the way down at the floor. The cheap plastic Pinnochio nose was already sliding down the tip of his nose.

“Here.” I took a step towards him and tilted his chin back up and proceeded to fix the nose. I could feel Troy freeze as soon as I made contact. “I’m sorry, this thing’s a little tricky.” 

“Uh.” Troy said, looking up at the ears on my head, “Thanks.”

“I should probably set our props.” I said, stepping away, “Wanna come?”

“No, I think I’m gonna stay here and, you know, warm-up.” he said, stretching out his arms in front of him.

“Cool. See you soon.” But my stomach was dropping as I left the dressing room. Troy acting skittish and seemingly avoiding spending time with me was all just confirmation of what I had been afraid of, Troy was getting sick of me. This was barely an isolated incident. Just earlier that week we -

**Oh my god, are you kidding me?**

Why would I be?

**Troy getting sick of you? Jumping the shark? A bug on the ceiling? Really. Listen, Abed, I had to watch you and Troy dance around this thing for years, I’m not about to watch you dance around it now.**

Dance around what?

**Abed, I was in the dressing room! We both know what I’m talking about.**

I’m afraid I don’t... Mr. Winger, perhaps the defendant would like to call the prosecution to the stand.

**Not how that works, but I’m listening.**

Mr. Winger, why don’t you tell us in your own words what did happen during Shrack the Musical.

**Okay, well first of all -**

In flashback.

**Abed, I’m not -**

_Jeff!_

**Fine! God, I’m going to regret this.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope this is as absolutely insane as you expected!! And this is only the beginning!!! Next week will be a Jeff led flashback!!!  
> I am really appreciating all the comments, y'all are so sweet and amazing and I am so glad you're enjoying this rollercoaster ride!!!!!  
> This won’t be the last of the flashback detours, but it will probably be the longest. I originally planned for the Shrack detour to be 2 chapters long but it’s looking to be more like a 3 chapter, or maybe even 2 and a half, so look out for those and then we’ll be back to the heart wrenching present :)


	5. Shrack The Original Musical Part Two: If This Is It, It Blows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Troy tries to express himself in metaphor. Abed is insecure. There are multiple injuries. Changquaad. This is Shrack: The Original Musical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so we switch between Jeff Flashback and Abed flashback halfway through, I'm sure y'all can keep up.   
> I have gone fully feral. Please enjoy.

Fine! God, I’m going to regret this.

So I’m there, in the men’s bathroom.

**The dressing room.**

Let’s call it what it is, Abed, it was the men’s bathroom. 

I had claimed the sink farthest from the door and brought in a rolling office chair for good measure, hoping to get some peace and quiet by distancing myself as far away from other people as possible. But of course it didn’t actually work, because why would it. 

For one, Chang had taken the sink right next to me. “Hmmm.” he said, looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, “I don’t know, there’s just something missing.” What could  _ possibly  _ be missing? He was in his stupid Farquaad costume, this big oversized red shirt, cape, and black tights with these two little misshapen yellow legs sewed onto the front, so he could walk around on his knees and look short. Chang didn’t even  _ do _ that, he just walked around, full height, stuffed little yellow legs flapping around when he walked. It would’ve been funny if I did not have to deal with him personally. 

Chang got this feral look in his eye, “I got it.” And marched out of the bathroom, thank GOD, finally some peace and quiet - except that’s when you guys came in.

I don’t really remember exactly what you were talking about - something about whatever happened in Cougar Town the night before. And then you switched costumes, which was certainly interesting, but not out of the question for you two. You two could be strangely domestic, but sometimes it crossed over into just weirdly close and I just couldn’t question it anymore. That’s not my point right now though.

“What? Am I missing something?” I glanced up from my phone for a second, but just got subjected to this emotional car crash I couldn’t look away from. Abed, you were wearing Troy’s vest and that was exactly the problem.  _ Just  _ the vest. I don’t know if it’s ever struck you, but Abed you’re hot.

**Thanks.**

No, Abed, you have a  _ six-pack. _ And I still don’t know where you got it from and it is wildly jarring to anyone who knows you, strikes wild visual dissonance. Why do you have them? Do you work out? Why are you so toned? I spent a week in 2011 trying to figure out why myself and you said “I have a fast metabolism.”

**I do, though.**

That doesn’t explain a  _ six-pack _ , Abed, what are you hiding?!

_ Jeff? _

Right, okay, not my point. My point is apparently Troy hadn’t seen this before, or at least he never noticed it before, because his eyes were the size of the goddamn moon and his solution was to simply not look at you. 

“No, it’s just - Abed, you’re - um... Um. Don’t forget the ears.”

You go about your business putting on the ears, apparently completely oblivious to the fact that Troy is actively trying to not jump your bones right there. Then, as if I couldn’t already cut the weird sexual tension with a knife, you have to fix Troy’s nose. So now you’re standing  _ right there _ , your hands are  _ on his face.  _

“Here. I’m sorry, this thing’s a little tricky.” 

And Troy freezes like a statue. If you saw him in a museum he’d probably be called something like ‘Man Realizing He Wants To Bang His Best Friend’. “Uh. Thanks.” Troy is still not looking at you. From what I recall, you left your hands on his face a little longer than you had to.

**Objection, conjecture.**

_ Overruled, Abed, that’s not what that means. _

Thank you, Annie. And then you said: “I should probably set our props. Wanna come?” And I was crossing my fingers that Troy would leave with you, honestly. Or even that maybe this was your way of getting him alone so you two could work things out.

“No, I think I’m gonna stay here and, you know, warm-up,” he said. And as soon as the door closed behind you, Troy sat down on the ground right where he was standing. Totally silent. It would’ve been hilarious if it was an isolated incident. 

Don’t interfere, I thought, Do not interfere.

“Hey, buddy,” I said anyway, “How you doing?”

“What? Huh? I’m not gay. What?”

This was not what I thought I’d have to unpack today. “Okaaaay... So what was that then?”

“I’m....... sick.”

“Yeah? I think Shirley keeps tums in her purse.” 

“Cool.” he said, “But, uh, what if I did though? Like.... guys. A little.”

“Well, it’s certainly no one’s business if you don’t feel like sharing yet.” I told him, “But I have a feeling there’s going to be someone you’re gonna wanna tell at some point.”

Troy nodded, going from looking a little sad to a little determined. 

He started to say something else, but Britta decided to Britta the moment and burst in, shouting something about me not learning my lines and sabotaging her on purpose (I wasn’t I simply didn’t care). 

**Now, Mr. Winger, you said this kind of behavior wasn’t an isolated incident?**

I am so glad you asked, Mr. Nadir.

You and Troy started switching off roles every other day and Troy seemed to get used to seeing you in without a shirt, but that certainly didn’t stop him actively checking you out. 

  
  


One day while you weren’t looking, he nudged the plastic nose out of place again. When you looked back up at him, there you were, standing a little closer than you needed to be. Except this time, Troy was looking right at you. You were telling him something that sounded important, I don’t think he was listening but he was certainly reading your lips. 

He would watch you onstage like you were a revelation, he was never not looking at you when you were in the same room, Abed, he was so into you it got annoying. Do you not remember how many cues he missed because he was talking to you? The show was already a nightmare, we didn’t need one of the people who were actually talented throwing the rest of us under the bus too. Especially with Britta making those ungodly noises that she called singing, The Dean inserting himself into every ensemble number, and Pierce walking around in his frankly terrifying costume for Farquaad’s henchmen and scaring the shit out of everyone.

**His name was Thelonious.**

Wow, thanks, Abed. Cause that was the important part.

And the frosting on the cake, Chang - who would only answer to Changquaad - who had not understood the point of his costume at all and decided that what he really needed was actually more legs. By the final dress, Chang was walking around with eight little yellow legs sewn onto his tights which was honestly not as horrifying as the fact that he was, as Craig - The Dean - called, “going method”. I’m pretty sure he was just being Chang.

With all of that, opening night was really just set up for disaster. But I didn’t think it would be for Troy, really. 

I got to the bathroom early, I liked to get in costume early so I could sit in the corner and not talk to anyone until The Dean started warm-ups (oh  _ god  _ warm-ups). But that night, I wasn’t the first one there; Troy was there, hyping himself up in the mirror, putting his face paint on with his fingers and singing to himself. 

“You gotta turn up the heat, you gotta butter the pan, you gotta make a move don’t be afraid - Ah! Oh. Hi, Jeff.”

“Hey... little early today?”

“Jeff, you wouldn’t know this,” Troy said, smug, “But a good actor is always prepared.” Which, okay. Ouch, but whatever.

“Oh, really?” I asked, but before I could ask about the bouquet Troy had tried to hide under a sweatshirt at his station, Chang came waltzing in.

“Shouldn’t you be in your swamp, ogre?” Chang was already in costume, which he had apparently bedazzled himself the night before, because there were dozens of new out of place rhinestones shining in the fluorescents.

“I wish.” I had said. And I did! I would’ve rather been in a real-life swamp that to have lived through that show and I stand by that. Thank god we never had to do that show again. Anyway. Abed, you called Troy out of the bathroom and I didn’t get a chance to talk to him until after the show. Well, I mean, he didn’t exactly talk much.

I left my phone in the bathroom at my sink (ew). Me, Britta, and Shirley, all firmly in the ‘ this experience has traumatized me’ camp, were going to get drinks and I ran back to get it before we left. But there was Troy, again, at his sink. But this time he wasn’t looking in the mirror and he was pretty firmly crying into his own hands. 

When he didn’t notice I had come in... Okay, this was kinda shitty of me. I panicked. I snuck around him, grabbed my phone, and left and I don’t think he noticed. On my way out, I could see his flowers from earlier in the trash.

_ Jeff, that’s so mean! _

Give me a break, it was a rough night! I feel bad about it, okay? Maybe I should’ve talked to him.

**And you think I was the reason?**

Well, duh. Troy insinuated that he was attracted to you to me directly. He was following you around like a lovesick puppy for a week. He was hyping himself up in the mirror, he had flowers that were clearly not for him. What else could that be about?

**Isn’t that character evidence? I thought you told me that doesn’t hold weight in real-life court?**

Yes, but that begs the question, Abed. What did you  _ say  _ to him... Abed, don’t make me call you back to the stand.

**... I may know what you’re referring to... Besides, you skipped the whole of opening night. What kind of flashback is that? Where is the dramatic tension? Your storytelling is clumsy, Jeff.**

Well? Retake the stand, Abed. What happened.

**... Can I get some water first?**

No.

_ I’ll... uh... go get you some... you guys are getting weird anyway. _

...

Of course, you know that our next five performances scheduled after that night were cancelled since you can’t have a show without a cast. 

**No one of sane mind would agree to come back to do another show the next night.**

Who’s on the stand, Jeff?

As soon as The Dean’s warm-up was over (which was just him leading us around in a circle, chanting “I feel very good! Very, very, very good! I just feel very good!” at wildly different volumes for five minutes) and we had all gone to places, I could tell this show was gonna be... interesting.

Troy and I poked our heads through the curtains at five to curtain to see the house was packed, which was already a red flag, an audience full of them. But we didn’t see it that way at the time.

“Wow...” Troy grinned, closing the curtains and looking back at me, “Abed, we’re gonna be stars... Are you gonna forget about me when you make it big?”

“Why would I?” I said, “Wouldn’t you also make it big?”

“Do you think I would?”

“Of course. You would make it big before me.” I said, “You’re much more likable, you could go mainstream?”

“You take that back.”

“You’re right, that’s wrong... You’d be a cult classic with a small but dedicated fan-base."

Troy put a hand on my shoulder, standing a little too close. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“PLACES!” The Dean shrieked from across the stage. Troy jumped, taking his hand off my shoulder.

“Thank you, places,” we said together, amongst other echoes of the same sentiment around the stage.

“You ready?” Troy asked me, straightening up.

“I was born ready,” I replied in my Pinnochio falsetto. We did our shake and parted ways.

The show started more or less according to plan, except for Garret - in the role of Shrack’s father - slipping on Vicky’s - in the role of Shrack’s mother - skirt, sending him tumbling to the stage floor with a brutal SMACK. 

“I’M OKAY.” he yelled, mic still on, as the lights went down on them as The Dean - playing the Young Shrack - exited, giving way for Jeff, half-heartedly kicking down Shrack’s outhouse door, giving a rousing chorus of ‘It’s A Big, Bright, Beautiful World’. 

Luckily Garret was more or less okay to keep going through the show and joined our little clump of “freaks” as the ensemble prepared to enter for the next number. I was watching Jeff belt out his last few lines with more enthusiasm than I personally had expected.

**Let’s not focus on that.**

When I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Hey,” Troy whispered. He had evidently pushed his way through our little clump, “I just wanted to tell you to break a leg. You’re gonna do great.”

“Thanks.” I whispered back, You too.”

“SHHH.” Britta shushed us, way louder than either of us were talking, as she passed by.

“I also, um, was wondering,” Troy whispered under Jeff’s big final notes, even quieter, moving his lips over-exaggeratedly to make what he was saying even more clear, “If I could talk to you later? Like one on one?”

I was about to respond, but I was already being shoved onstage by Pierce in his just slightly too small Lord Farquaad guard costume, so I just nodded back. Troy seemed to get the message because he gave me a thumbs-up. 

Pierce seemed to forget all his lines once we got into the scene and just started shouting vaguely threatening things. “And don’t come back now, ya hear, ya dirty freaks!?” he shouted over the vamp.

“You mean if we ever come back to Dulock we’ll be executed?!” I replied in character. I wasn’t gonna let Pierce skim over important plot points, not tonight. 

“Uh!” he shouted, “Yeah! You dirty freaks!” With that, he was able to stomp offstage so we could continue the number. But as we got through the rest of the scene, I had the Troy of it all nagging at the back of my mind. What did he want to talk about that was important enough that he had to preface it with asking for my permission? We talked one on one all the time, what made this so important?

Troy and I had exactly 10 minutes in act one where he and I would sit off stage right and watch the show. I had taken my seat on the ground once I had exited and watched Troy perform his number without missing a beat. But when he exited off stage left with Jeff, as he always did, he didn’t walk around the stage to come sit with me, as he usually did. I almost went to go look for Troy, he must’ve gone to the dressing rooms I thought, but that’s when things began to go off the rails.

Changquaad had taken some liberties with his interpretation of his role, walking around at full height instead of on his knees and adding his extra legs, but something came over him opening night. He had elected to GRAB the Gingy puppet, being operated and voiced by Annie, by the throat where a collar would be. She kept going with the scene, voice wavering, “Do you know... the Muffin Man?” 

“The Muffin Man...” Chang let go but was looking very carefully at the puppet, “Yes. I know the muffin man. Who lives on Drury Lane?”

“Well,” Annie responded in character, confidently, “She’s married to the muffin man.”

That’s when Chang snapped. He grabbed the puppet with both hands. “THE MUFFIN MAN?!”

“THE MUFFIN MAN,” Annie shouted back, not even moving the puppet’s mouth anymore, in true fear. 

“WHO’S MARRIED TO THE MUFFIN MAN?” Chang went off script, “TELL ME YOU SON OF A BITCH!” And punched the puppet in it’s poorly sewn face. Annie made a smart move and took her puppet and flimsy wall off stage, screaming in pain. “SEND THAT COOKIE TO THE SWAMP!” Chang demanded in his rage. There was a beat of confused fearful silence from the audience, and silence on stage as Starburns didn’t know whether or not to continue with his line. “...My lord?” he finally dared, uncertainly, “We have scoured the land tirelessly and we have found the treasure you most seek?”

“A pretty pony?” Chang said, completely serious. When the audience laughed, he turned to them, “Shut up.”

“...No. My lord?” Starburns said, “Um... the magic mirror?”

Meanwhile, Annie had run up to me backstage, shedding her cardboard wall and felt puppet onto the floor. “Abed!’ she shout-whispered through tears, holding one hand carefully in the other, “Abed, I think he broke my hand! Oh my god!" Annie’s tears turned to tears of fury, “Chang  _ broke  _ my  _ hand. _ ”

Suddenly, Troy appeared out of nowhere, beaming, “Abed!” he said at full volume. Annie and I shushed him quietly, “Sorry!” he whispered, “...Wait, what’s wrong!”

“I’m gonna kill him! I'm gonna kill him!" Annie whispered, trying to gesture with her hands. She flinched, “OW!”

“Chang punched her hand.” I whispered, “You should probably go to the hospital.”

“What?! No!” Annie said, “I need to stay, I don’t have an understudy!”

“It’s okay, I can wrap up your hand. I bet it’s not even broken.” Troy said, “Can you puppet left-handed?”Annie nodded like a petulant child. Troy turned to me, “This is gonna take a minute, can you go on for me? Just for the number.”

“Only if you do my next Pinnochio scene,” I said.

“Obviously.” he took his ears off his head and put them on me. 

On stage, The Dean entered in a black turtleneck, holding a large picture frame around his head, accompanied with majestic music. Chang had finally gone back on script, but when he cued Pierce, playing the hooded henchman Thelonius, to threaten the mirror by pretending to punch one in, Pierce  _ actually  _ punched the mirror. He didn’t seem to mind, but his hand was dripping blood onto the stage the rest of the scene. The blood was tracked around the stage for the rest of the stage. Remember that, that’s our Chekhov's Gun.

Jeff only blinked at me when I joined him on stage instead of Troy. 

**It’s called being numb, look it up.**

You’re irritated. I’ll summarize, then we can get to the good part.

Troy and I ended up tag teaming his role for the remainder of act one, which went smoothly - sans any more episodes from Chang or injuries. Act two is where it gets interesting, so let's break down the numbers.

  * A tree branch fell on Britta during ‘Morning Person’, but she soldiered on anyway.
  * The fart section was entirely cut from ‘I Think I Got You Beat’ during rehearsals. But only then did we all realize we had never told our pianist, Ian Duncan, leaving Jeff and Britta to just stare at each other in silence for a minute, because Duncan kept vamping because he was convinced the sound cue must be late.
  * Chang didn’t go off script once for ‘The Ballad of Farquaad’, but delivered the number with the demeanor of... Chang, rather than as comedy song.
  * This was one me. Troy and I had continued to tag team scenes as Donkey and we both accidentally ended up on stage for ‘Make A Move’. Troy and I just think it enhanced the number.
  * This is where things get tricky.



We were both off stage for ‘When Words Fail’ when Troy reached out to put a hand on my shoulder and, strangely, didn’t.

“Abed, can we...” he began.

“Talk?” I asked, “We already are.”

“No, but I mean seriously,” he said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his costume.

“Of course.”

“Okay... So like - Damn, how do I say this?” he chuckled, “I’m like... Fiona. I guess? Like I’m super hot and cool and tough and a badass...” Troy had spaced, “What was I saying? Oh right. But I feel like I’m always kinda hiding part of myself so people will like me more. You know what I mean?” 

“You turn into an ogre at night?”

“Not really, Abed, I mean like... what’s the word people use when they’re comparing situations?” 

“Thematic parallels?” 

“I was thinking more like a metaphor maybe, but yeah.” he said thoughtfully, “Like instead of an ogre, I’m actually kinda nerdy and stuff? Right?”

I nodded. “Right.” I said, “But what does that relate to?”

“Well... I guess I was thinking, you know, maybe...” he explained slowly, “I need a Shrek to make me feel more... accepted and stuff for being myself. And who loves me like that. Even if I’m an ogre, it’s okay cause so are they? Like... I’m not alone. And neither are they.” 

I gave this some thought for a second. Troy was looking at me like he was saying something obvious and I thought I had it figured out. 

**And?**

Well... I thought I was Donkey in this equation.

“Hmm. Interesting.” I had said. And then, foolishly, “Well, I hope you find your Shrek.”

**Abed, oh my GOD.**

I... I could tell you it was a homage. That I was playing the yearning best friend to the earnest protagonist trying to find themself and that was what the moment called for. But here’s the truth. I didn’t know. I didn’t think Troy would really be interested in me. 

**You didn’t know. That’s the truth?**

Not the whole truth. I’m like an ogre, Jeff. I have layers.

In hindsight, I was terrified. Terrified that I  _ was  _ Shrek. Because Shrek is a fairytale, Jeff. Fairytales were once morality tales - Don’t go into the woods alone, don’t talk to strangers, don’t be arrogant, don’t be stupid - and we took that away from fairytales over time. We gave them happy endings. The princess is rescued by the prince, the protagonist's problems are deus-ex machina’d away by a force outside themselves. Shrek may be a twist on the fairytale tropes, but it plays right into their hand. Shrek saves Princess Fiona and their problems are deus ex-machina’d away by a dragon and a curse with a loophole. But what was gonna deus ex-machina our problems away when Troy inevitably decided he was sick of me? 

**Troy would never get sick of you.**

Well, I know that now. But I guess that’s why you have to watch some movies twice.

“I... Um. I think you should take this one.” Troy handed me the Donkey ears as the cue came up.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I just need a minute.” Troy said with a small (pained?) smile. But he seemed okay, I had no reason to worry. He gave me a pat on the pat, I put on the ears, and I entered. 

Of course we know what happened during the finale. You actually cried during ‘Build A Wall’ -

**That’s just a rumor.**

And due to clouded eyesight, upon entering for the wedding scene, you -

**Slipped on the puddle of Pierce’s blood and wiped out? I was there, Abed.**

Upon falling you broke into a string of curses. Changquaad started laughing, “FOOLISH OGRE.” he placed a many-legged leg on your stomach, “CRUMBLE IN FEAR OF MY MANY LEGS.”

“Hey! Leave him alone!” Britta!Fiona shouted and shoved Chang away, “Screw you AND your legs! Cause...” she grabbed her green spray-painted clown nose out of her bra and put it on her face quickly, “Cause the sun is down! And I’m an ogre, bitch! GRRR!”

Changquaad was devastated. “My love... Monstrosity... is catching.” he choked out in sorrow before wiping away his tears, “GUARDS! KILL THE BEASTS!”

“No way, James Roday!” Britta shouted, “We got a dragon!” Silence. When Dragon was supposed to eat Changquaad, Shirley was supposed to enter screaming, the lights would go out, Chang would scream, they would exit, and when the lights came up they would be gone. 

But obviously, none of this happened and there was no Shirley in sight.

Troy and I, waiting from the wings for our entrances, were panicking.

“Follow my lead.” I told Troy, and we rushed the stage.

“YOUR FATHER IS A DWARF!” I shouted as Pinnochio.

“YOU ARE SHORT!” Troy shouted at the same time. Apparently we were on the same page.

“Oh yeah? Well, you two are a couple of FREAKS!” Chang shouted. He turned to the audience, “YOU’RE ALLLL FREAKS! GUARDS! GET THEM!” he pointed out into the audience. Troy, without thinking, pushed Changquaad onto the ground.

“Take that!” Troy proclaimed.

“And that!” Britta added, kicking Chang.

“Ow!” he shouted, “Stop that! I’ll destroy you all!”

“Yeah, take that too!” I followed suit with another kick. Before I knew it, Annie, eager to take her revenge, appeared at my side with a shriek. We were all just kicking a Changquaad while he was down.

Pierce took off his helmet. “This is getting too weird, even for me,” he said.

“God, guys!” Chang cried, finally dropping character, “This is messed up, stop it!” We all did. He stood, “Screw you, guys.” And with that he limped off stage, never to be Changquaad again. We all stood there for a second, just looking at the audience looking back at us in horror. 

“I THOUGHT LOVE WAS ONLY TRUE IN FAIRYTALES!” Britta shouted in what was a parody of the tune. Duncan seemed to get the cue because he joined her on piano, and we continued with the finale.

“Did you mean it?” Troy asked me during curtain calls, “When you said you hope I... find my Shrek?”

“I did,” I said. He didn’t need to know a part of me did hope it was me. 

“Okay... Abed -”

“Shh. Bow.” I whispered as we took our group bow off of Britta (because you were still on the ground, Jeff). I didn’t see Troy again that night.  I guess you were right.

**That show was a nightmare?**

I think I did break Troy’s heart.

_ Uhhh, guys? I think we’re in trouble. _

**Come on, Annie, you couldn’t have been more subtle?**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE AMAZING FEEDBACK. I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKED SHRACK.   
> I would recommend listening to Shrek the Musical if you haven't already. Mostly because it's a really good musical, but also it functions as some fun additional material now because i said so :)  
> Next time I'm throwing even more wrenches into my own plot, so stay tuned.


	6. Moon Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie spills the beans. There are many miscommunications and flashbacks within flashbacks. Moon madness may or may not be a factor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! This one is a little longer than usual, but we got a lot to work through! I did change how the Flashback Interjections are formatted, because we're throwing more characters into the mix! (I'll probably go back to the other chapters and make them match too.)

You can’t technically say it was definitely Annie’s fault. Abed was the one who asked for water! So, it was definitely not all her fault, at least.

Annie stepped out of Abed’s room and she knew that Shirley and Britta were around but not that they were right there. Well, a few feet down the hall, but right there.

“Oh! Hi, ladies.” she grinned, “Just getting Abed some water! You know. Best woman things!”

“Oooh, something is wrong.” Shirley said wide-eyed, exchanging a look with Britta, “Is Abed okay?” 

“Is Abed okay?” Annie said shrilly, “Pffft! He’s great! He’s getting married today! He and Jeff... are just... you now, doing ‘Cold Feets’.... you know for the trope! Ugh! Men! Amiright?! Pfft!”

“Aha! I knew it!” Britta shouted, rushing Annie’s personal space, “Abed hates Drowsy Chaperone. He told me the guy in the chair made him break out into hives when we saw Chang and Craig's community theatre production!!”

“It’s Man In Chair! ” Annie snapped. She stopped herself. She doesn’t want to come off too harsh, it might make her seem more suspicious. She didn’t want this blowing up before Abed was ready to tackle it. “Maybe...” she began evenly, backing away slowly out of the conversation, “Abed is freaking out a little. But it’s totally normal wedding jitters! Jeff is talking him down and I’m gonna go get him some -”

“Hey, Annie?” 

“...Water.” Annie winced, quickly replaced it with a smile, and spun around, “David! Hiiiiiii. You look so handsome!”

“Uh, haha, thanks,” David smiled wearily. He did look handsome, too. He cut quite the figure in his suit, but the smile on his face wasn’t exactly the glowing groom. Is that a phrase? Glowing Groom? It must be, Annie thinks, because she’s seen some in her time, but David sure wasn’t one right now. In fact his smile probably matched Annie’s right now. “Um, is Abed okay? No big deal! It’s just we’re running a little -”

“Late?” Annie finished, “I know, I’m sorry. Abed’s still getting ready. You know how he is!” Annie adds with a wink, as if this will explain everything. She knows it won’t and she knows from the way David chuckles and winks back that it didn’t. Good.

“Yeah, yeah, of course!” David nodded, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a Groomzilla or anything!” Annie almost felt bad. Is this gaslighting? But this was for Abed. That could excuse a little gaslighting, she decided, if this did intact qualify as such which she wasn't convinced it did. She's not a monster after all. 

“Nooo, of course you’re not!” she said 

“I’m sorry, I’d go in there myself, but you know - bad luck!” David laughed, “But yeah, we’re all good to go whenever you are.” David said, now backing away himself, “No rush! Of course. Just let us know. Again, no rush!” And with that he disappeared down the hall. Annie was so relieved to be rid of that problem that she almost forgot the two problems standing right behind her.

“You are hiding something.” Britta narrowed her eyes as Annie spun around to face her and Shirley, who was giving Annie her own patented ‘Mom Knows You Did Something Bad’ look. 

“I am?” Annie asked, “Nooo, that would mean I’m acting suspicious!”

“You are acting suspicious.” Shirley said in a low tone.

“I am?” Annie was pretty backed against a wall. Well... they were going to find out soon anyway, weren’t they? It couldn’t hurt to let them in on what’s going on a little early. She would just have to be sneaky about it, “Well... I am heading to get Abed some water... Maybe we can chat on the way there?” She widened her eyes meaningfully at them. 

They seemed to get the message, as Britta and Shirley exchanged a look between each other, and proceeded to follow Annie slowly to the vending machine at the end of the long hall.

“So, it seems,” she began cautiously, you never know who could be listening, “That a certain friend of ours has got some cold feet - not the song from Drowsy Chaperone, actual wedding jitters - but...” she lowered her voice, keeping her eyes straight ahead, “He doesn’t want? To get married?”

“What?!” Britta exclaimed. Annie spun around, ready to defend herself, but Shirley had placed a hand on Britta’s arm with a “SHH” and then gave Annie a look as if to tell her to keep talking. 

Annie nodded and turned away. “Okay. Well. The thing is. Abed is in love with...” Wait. Is it a breach of privacy to say who? And Britta is like right here. “With someone else.” she settled, as they came to a stop in front of the vending machine. She pulled a few quarters out of her purse and began to feed them into the machine. She could see Britta and Shirley in their reflection in the glass front of the machine, visibly tense. “And he was hoping they would stop the wedding. Like in a movie? And thank god he told me or else Abed would probably be getting married right now!” she laughed tensely as the water bottle fell to the bottom of the machine. She bent over to grab it.

She heard Britta gasp, “Annie, you don’t mean... Oh my god.” 

And she heard Shirley say coldly, “Oh honey, I know I didn’t just hear that.” 

Annie stood up, “Guys, it’s okay! Me and Jeff have got it under -” She turned around to face them, but they were already gone and heading straight for Abed’s door. “GUYS!” she shrieked. 

Annie broke into a run, dropping the water bottle entirely, and throwing herself in between them and Abed’s door. “You guys, Abed is already freaking out!” she said quickly, “We don’t need to pressure him -”

“My cake is melting down there. Abed needs to let that poor boy down easy before it turns into a naked cake in a puddle of frosting.” Shirley said, rolling up the sleeves of her cardigan.

“Annie. I did not plan this whole wedding.” Britta said darkly, “Just so I couldn’t at least help ruin it.”

Britta reached under Annie’s arm for the doorknob, turning it before Annie could slap it away. The door now a crack open, Annie slipped in and slammed the door behind her. “Uhhh, guys? I think we’re in trouble.” she put her whole body weight (not much) against the door, trying to prevent Shirley and Britta from pushing their way in.

Okay, so maybe this was all her fault.

Jeff and Abed, who were sitting right where she left him, looked up at her. Abed looked more or less as shaken as he had all day, but Jeff seemed to have calmed down while she was gone. Clearly that wasn’t going to last long.

“Come on, Annie, you couldn’t have been more subtle?” he snapped.

Abed sighed. “It’s okay.” he stood up, straightened his bowtie, “Let them in.”

“Are you sure?” Annie winced. Abed nodded. Annie didn’t like where this was going one bit, but this was Abed’s Not-Wedding. And she was his Best Woman at his Not-Wedding, so what Abed wanted she had to make sure Abed got. So, with a cringe, she stepped away from the door and let Britta and Shirley come barging in, talking over each other. 

Abed held up a hand, effectively silencing both of them. “Before you lay into me too, I would like to know what Annie told you.” he said calmly. 

“That you’re leaving David at the altar!” Britta said.

“That you’re letting all our hard work we did for you go to waste.” Shirley said at the same time.

“Wrong on both counts.” Abed said, “I wouldn’t be leaving David at the altar. Technically, to be left at the altar, I would have to just not show up. An outside party would be taking me from the altar.”

“Same diff!”

“And Shirley, I would never let your work go to waste. It is simply going towards a different event than you believed it would be.”

“Because you deceived us, Abed!” Shirley shouted.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t point that out.” Abed said, “Here, everyone sit down. I can explain -”

“No, Abed, you sit down.” Shirley said in a terrifying maternal tone. Abed sat down without another word. Shirley kneeled down in front of him as if Abed were one of her sons. If you asked her she’d say he might as well be. “Now you listen to me.” she began sweetly, “Remember when you told us all how you had a boyfriend and I told you that I will always support you and love you? And as long as you are happy I am happy? Answer me, boy.” she added sternly. Abed nodded. “Well, I love you but I cannot support you leading on David all the way down the aisle. You gotta be honest with that boy. Okay?” Abed nodded again. “Now I always thought you’d be a nice couple,” Shirley stood up, “But I don’t understand why you couldn’t talk about it sooner.” 

“Slow burn.” Abed said absently. 

“Slow burn my ass.” Shirley muttered, “Listen, I’m proud of you kids for working this out,” she gestured between Abed and Annie flippantly, “But you better get out there and explain this to David -”

“Woah, woah, woah!” Annie held up her hands in defense, “Us two kids?”

“What? You two aren’t?”

“No!” 

“You’ve got it all wrong, Shirley.” Abed said bluntly, “If I wanted Annie’s milk, I would’ve bought that cow long ago. No offense.”

Annie gasped in offense. “Full offense, Abed! That is not how that metaphor works.” she protested, “Do you know how many people want my milk?!”

“Probably a lot,” Abed said.

“UHUH,” Annie was getting angry now.

“Shirley, come on, that’s so heteronormative of you!” Britta scoffed. She turned to Jeff with a huff, “For the record, you guys, I always knew this was coming.”

“Are you...” Jeff looked behind him as if perhaps Troy could’ve been standing there, and back at Britta, “Are you talking to me?!” he asked incredulously, standing up to his full height.

“Well, yeah! It’s been obvious!” Britta said without a doubt.

“Jeff and Abed?!” Shirley chimed in. She began to say more, but she just started laughing, “Oh lord!”

“Britta,” Annie began smugly, “I think you’re being a little ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous?! HA!” Britta nearly screamed. She pulled her phone out of her bra, as she had no pockets, and began to mess with the keypad, “Oooh stupid Britta is never right about anything! She doesn’t know anything about relationships!” she whipped her phone out in front of her, displaying a very blurry photo of two people, “Read it and weep! ...Well, look and weep!”

“What is that, a Picasso?” Jeff crossed his arms as everyone gathered around Britta’s small screen.

“What? Don’t recognize yourself, Jeff?” Britta asked tauntingly, “What you guys are looking at? Is Jeff KISSING ABED.”

Shirley and Annie squinted and looked a little closer. 

“Oh god, I totally see it,” Annie said, stupefied. Britta was right, Abed and Jeff were all wrapped up in each other in blurred color on her small screen. 

“Not cool, Britta.” Abed said, “This is very Gossip Girl of you.”

“Fine! We agreed it was a mistake and to never talk about it again.” Jeff relented, “Which honestly, I don’t think we should.”

“It was a complicated time,” Abed said.

“It really wasn’t.” Jeff scoffed.

“Maybe not for you.” Abed said, “I was emotionally vulnerable. I had just figured out Rachel broke up with me and she was already a rebound in the first place. You were a rebound of a rebound.”

“I’m flattered. Why is this relevant?” Jeff deadpanned.

“Wait. Rachel was a rebound?” asked Britta.

“Oooh, that makes sense.” Annie said quietly, “You two did move weirdly fast.”

“Rebound from what?” Shirley raised an eyebrow. 

“The year was 2016.” 

“Abed, no! No flashbacks!” Britta exclaimed, “They’re a crutch! Just tell us!”

“Just go with it.” Jeff said, already sitting down, “This is just how today is going.”

...

The year was 2016. 

The after-party of Chief Star and the Raiders of the Galaxy screening was well attended, despite the, in my own opinion, abysmal quality of the film itself. Call me a perfectionist.

“They love us.” Jeff found me at the snack table, leaning against a nearby pillar, like he didn’t care about the movie the way he did earlier, “They really love us.”

“They think they love us.” I said, “They’ll find the plot holes in a week. The plot makes sense in the heat of the initial screening, but doesn’t hold up under multiple views.”

“I don’t think that’ll be an issue,” Jeff said.

“It won’t be, I destroyed all the physical copies,” I said.

“This party is pretty lame though...” Jeff surveyed the room with an apathetic eye, “Wanna get outta here.”

_B: WOW, JEFF._

_J: Okay, it was not supposed to come off that skeezy._

It did though. But that’s kinda par for the course talking to Jeff sometimes, so I agreed. I don’t exactly like reveling in my own failure anyway.

We interpreted “get out of here” as “go stand right outside the dimly lit door to the building and drink the gross punch with a little too much rum in it by the light of the moon.” The moon was very big that night.

“Hey, sorry for the actually almost kinda murdering you back there,” Jeff said somewhat awkwardly between sips.

“It’s cool, you were thinking a lot about... that guy on Parks and Rec whose name I won’t mention.”

“Too late I’m already thinking about him.” he shook his head and then continued, “Let's change the subject. How’s Rachel?” As if that would somehow steer this conversation into a more normal direction, but it would not.

“I think we broke up actually.”

“Oh...” Jeff was clearly realizing how much worse he had made this conversation already, “That sucks, when?”

“About six months ago.” I said, “At the end of last year she said she wouldn’t be seeing me for a while. I didn’t realize until recently that she meant she was moving out of state. She lives in New York now. So, I guess that was a break-up.”

“Sounds like a lousy break-up if you didn’t even know it was happening.” Jeff frowned, leaning against the wall in a way that made him loom over me. 

It needs to be said if we continue this flashback I guess, just to clear the air; Jeff is objectively attractive. I have been attracted to him once or twice. Who here hasn’t? ...That’s right. No one can fault me for it. Moving on. 

“It’s not her fault. I miss social cues sometimes. It’s fine.” It was F-I-N-E. I liked Rachel a lot, despite being a rebound she was a solid one at that. She was intelligent, patient, funny, and all around enjoyable to spend time with. But Rachel had left right under my nose without me realizing. What kind of boyfriend does that make me? One still too hung up on someone else to notice that their actual girlfriend had left. I tried to use Rachel to fill a gap in my life and when she left I didn’t even notice. The gaping hole was still there the whole time. And still was. And still is.

“It’s not fine.” Jeff said, “It’s totally not fine. She should’ve been more clear. That’s on her, not on you. If she’s not even considerate enough to make her intentions clear? I’m glad she’s not around anymore. You don’t need to be wasting your time on people who don’t care enough about you, Abed.” I nodded, examining Jeff’s face closely. It was all hitting a little too close to home that night. 

There were intentions I wished had been made clear. I just wasn’t Rachel’s intentions I was dwelling on. Maybe I had been wasting my time on someone who would rather get kidnapped by pirates than be around me. But there were people who wouldn’t, apparently. After all, Jeff was right there. And he wasn’t going anywhere.

_B: Wait, can we circle back around to the pirates?_

_S: Keep up, Britta! We all know he’s talking about Troy! Go ahead, sweetie._

Thank you, Shirley.

“You really think so?” I asked, inching closer.

“I really think so, Abed,” he said with a glance at my lips. 

So we kissed. For a while. Apparently long enough for Britta to invade our privacy. We were a little drunk and a little depressed and needing validation. It happens. 

“Okay,” Jeff pulled away.

“This is weird,” I said.

“This is very weird,” Jeff nodded. He held out his hand to shake, “Never speak of this again?”

I shook it. “Agreed.” 

We stood there for a moment not knowing what to say before Jeff spoke again. “Actually, I think I’m gonna kiss you again.”

“Cool.” So he did. And while it was a perfectly nice kiss, Jeff wasn’t really the person I wanted to kiss. This kiss was a lot shorter, however, as me and Jeff pulled away from each other again. 

“Yeah, no, still not working,” he said.

“Yeah, no, I still kinda feel -”

“Dead inside?” he finished bluntly.

“I think so.”

“It was worth a shot.” Jeff shrugged. 

I nodded, but my head was spinning a little bit. Maybe it was the rum in the punch or the kiss or what Jeff had said, but it had thrown me for a loop. And I couldn’t help thinking that I’d much rather be spending that night with someone else. Memories of late nights studying, wandering around campus to find the perfect place to stargaze, and defending the library against the forces of night as Batmen were starting to tug at the back of my mind in a way they hadn’t in a long time.

_J: Stop._

What?

_J: Are you just gonna put “Batmen” out there and not talk about that?_

I was getting to it. 

It was a symbol of compromise. It became clear during the War of Pillows and Blankets that Troy was beginning to feel like he was playing second fiddle. I thought it was ridiculous at first, Troy was a protagonist, a leading man, it’s strange to me that he couldn’t see that. 

“It’s just sometimes,” Troy had said that night, adjusting his Friendship Hat, “I feel like you could just go off on an adventure without me and you wouldn’t even notice I was gone?” Troy wasn’t angry anymore. He had suggested we talk in the middle of our awkwardly quiet viewing of The Hunger Games, which in retrospect was a terrible choice. We had paused the movie, but Troy was stress eating the popcorn, commandeering the whole bowl onto his lap.

“Well, you don’t have to be Constable Reggie anymore.” I said, “If that’s the issue -”

“No!” Troy exclaimed, mouth full of popcorn, “No, I love being your Constable!”

“Well, then maybe we can create a new team. Where we’re both equals.” I reached for some popcorn, my hand brushing Troy’s familiarly.

Troy swallowed too much popcorn, coughed, then said, “Yeah... Yeah, that sounds cool.” with a scratchy throat and reached for his mug of special drink.

“A perfect union.” I contemplated, “Two men combining their equally strong powers to fight the forces of evil...”

“Ninja turtles?” Troy perked up.

“Not enough of us, unfortunately. But that’s the idea.” I said. I snapped my fingers, “We could be Batman and Superman.”

“What? Superman’s lame, man, you know that.” Troy laughed. A lightbulb went off over his head, “We could be Batman and Wonder Woman!”

“Or... Bear with me.” I leaned in towards Troy, “We could be Batman and Batman.”

Troy gasped. “We could be Batmen.”

“I’m sorry.” I said, in my Batman growl, “What did you say?”

“I said,” Troy growled back, “We’re the Batmen.”

Batmen Day became a monthly event, every third Thursday until Troy had left. We would don capes and cowls and set out to protect those who may not have deserved to be protected - the students of Greendale.

“See that one?” Batman Troy growled to me as we sat perched on the roof of the library, “That’s Ursa Major. The Big Dipper is inside it.”

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Ursa Major means big bear.” I growled back.

“What? That’s so cool.”

“Zeus had an affair with a hunter of Artemis - Callisto - and she bore him a son. Knowing that Artemis would be furious that she broke her oath of celibacy, he turned her and her son into bears to protect them. When they died, he put them in the stars.”

“Wow.” Batman Troy pulled a loose gummy bear out of his pocket and popped it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully and gazing up at the stars I could see reflected in his eyes, “I don’t remember that from Percy Jackson.” I held out my hand and Batman Troy silently placed another gummy bear in my palm. And that was it. 

Maybe I had been in love with him for a while, but clear as day the thought popped into my head, ‘I think I am in love with you’. So potent I could’ve just opened my mouth and said it out loud then and there.

“Hey, Batman,” I growled.

“Yeah, Batman?” 

I pursed my lips, “Does Catwoman know you keep loose gummy bears in your pocket?” 

He popped another one into his mouth, “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

_A: Is that why his hands were always sticky for like months?_

I chased down the memory with my last sip of punch. “Have you ever been in love?” I asked absentmindedly.

Jeff’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “God, Abed.”

“This has nothing to do with you.” I said, “Humor me.”

Jeff rolled his eyes but seemed to think better of whatever snark he had on the tip of his tongue, “Fine. But I’m only telling you this because this is already super weird.” he sighed, “I don’t know. I used to think I hadn’t. It was something I really prided myself on, you know?”

“...But?”

“But now I think I’ve been in love a lot of times and I just didn’t think I was cause... whatever reason.” he nodded, “You?”

I didn’t answer directly, “What could I do if I was?”

“Um... I couldn’t tell you.” Jeff said flatly, “Are you okay, Abed?”

“I’m okay, I’m just seeing ghosts.” I said, “I think I should go.”

“Okay?” Jeff offered me a ride home, but I was already walking away. 

For those of you who recall, I’m technically a clone of the original Abed who died during that game of the Floor is Lava all those years ago. All the same memories, none of the emotional attachment to them. Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself when I felt lava sting the soles of my feet. 

Being cloned was a blessing. It took the weight off of Troy leaving in that, for one, Clone Abed wasn’t in love with Troy and, for second, there was no original Troy to be in love with now. Only the Clone Troy that left on the Childish Tycoon. But there must’ve been something faulty in the cloning technology, because after a year of not dwelling on Troy I was suddenly being overrun with a flood of memories and the unavoidable emotions tied to them. And at the forefront of my mind there was one memory nagging at me, one entirely my own, my clone’s, that I’ve been willfully ignoring for a long time. 

“I can’t sleep.” Troy had knocked on the door on the blanket fort the night before he left, tapping his foot lightly on the floor for the sound effect.

“Me either,” I said, sitting up in my bunk. I was still sleeping on the bottom bunk. When Troy moved out, it felt wrong to move back to the top bunk.

I won't say that Troy moving into his own room wasn’t hard. But it was my idea. At first Troy and I moving in together was exciting and, more importantly, it felt safe. But spending every waking moment together can apparently still lead to devastating fights and letting Troy be his own person probably meant he should also have his own room.

“Did I... are you mad?” Troy had asked when I suggested it, “Is this about -”

“No, I’m not mad.” I said, “I just think maybe we both need some space. It’ll make spending time together more special.”

Troy seemed to accept this answer, which is good because I didn’t want to admit that Troy wasn’t the only party in this equation who needed space. It’s about time we address the Britta in the room, isn’t it? You’ve been very quiet.

_A: Abed, be nice._

Full disclosure; when the Tritta bomb dropped I was more or less devastated. Who wouldn’t be in my situation? The day it dropped I showed Annie a simulation of how I believed the date would go, awkwardly and terribly and the relationship would never work. She told me I was wrong, which I was, it was a biased simulation. So, after Annie made her alterations to the Dreamatorium, I ran a new simulation. A less biased one. 

_A: Oh, Abed -_

Giving Troy the Dreamatorium was the only option.

_B: Abed, I -_

Letting Troy be happy with someone else was the only option. 

“Can I still visit the fort?” Troy had asked, “You’re not, you know, kicking me out forever? Can I keep my key?”

“Of course you can. Mi casa, su casa.” I said, believing he wouldn’t.

“Even the Dreamatorium?”

“It’ll be a tighter squeeze, but -” He had launched forward to hug me before I had finished talking. 

Troy was true to his word. He visited the fort, we still played in the Dreamatorium, Batmen night remained a monthly staple, we had even created a new character - Normal Regular Man - during the Tritta Era.

_S: Was that the one where you would wear the big trench coat?_

_J: Yeah, and Troy would sit on your shoulders and you’d try and sneak into Rated R movies? I’m glad you guys stopped that one._

_A: Yeah, but maybe you should’ve drawn the line at Troy’s first concussion._

What I thought would be losing Troy wasn’t at all. Troy was still there. So what if he wasn’t - if he was -

_B: Abed?_

It doesn’t matter. And I am sorry, Britta. About how things worked out. But Troy wanted my help.

_B: And you couldn't say no._

I said I was sorry.

_B: No, Abed, I’m not mad. I -_

I’ve lost the plot. Let me start over.

Troy had been true to his word. He did visit the blanket fort, often. And he did that night. The memory nagging at me. Clone Abed’s first memory of Troy.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Me either.”

“Can I come in?” he had asked, shuffling his feet in the entrance hole.

“Of course,” I said. He breathed a sigh of relief and stepped inside. “We should watch something.” I said, “You pick.”

This wasn’t how I imagined our goodbye. I thought it would be something dramatic, a cliffhanger, a season finale. And in many ways, our last day together playing the Floor is Lava was. But the season finale never accounts for the intimate goodbyes, those last moments alone. Ours was watching Moonstruck on the laptop in the blanket fort, spread out on comforters and pillows scattered over the floor, and the Christmas lights the only other source of light besides the dim glow on the screen.

We didn’t say much during the beginning of the movie. Not completely unlike us, but it wasn’t a comfortable silence. It was a fragile silence, like one word could shatter it into a million sharp pieces that would cut us into a million pieces. 

That is until Nicholas Cage entered the movie and made Troy burst into loud unabashed laughter. “I LOST MY HAND!” he mimicked, holding back laughter, “I LOST MY BRIDE!” It’s lucky that Annie is a heavy sleeper because I cracked up laughing, smiling more than I had all day - or all week, or even all month - and our laughter had fallen into the same rhythm. And watching the rest of the movie felt like watching any given movie on any given night with Troy, maybe even better.

“I should just stay here forever,” Troy said, grinning at the sheet ceiling.

I almost frowned. “You shouldn’t.” 

Troy sat up to face me in a frenzy. “But we don’t know what's out there!” he said to me.

“...Could be wolves.” I smiled thinking of the film.

“There could be wolves, Abed!” he dismayed, “Even werewolves!”

“Just cause there are wolves doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go.”

“But it’s air-conditioned in here. And -” he looked at me, struggling with words for a second before continuing, “It’s probably like super hot out on the ocean. I should just stay here where it’s cold and stuff.”

“You’d come to hate the cold if you were never warm.”

“I think I could be cold forever if it meant I was here.” he said quietly, “But I guess you’re right.” He looked up at me with eyes shining in the dim lights, “Do you think I should go?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. I was done with holding Troy back. It wasn’t fair.

Troy almost smiled, but it seemed he couldn’t. “Do you want me to?” he asked.

I thought for a second even though there was nothing to think about. Friends don’t lie. “Of course I don’t want you to go. But you need to.”

“Me too. I mean, I feel the same I think?” Troy scrunched up his face in confusion, “But what if I come back and I’m totally different - or you’re totally different? That would suck. I...” he looked at me helplessly, “I don’t want that to happen.”

“It wouldn’t totally suck,” I said, certainly. I had thought about this, “Inspector Spacetime changes all the time when he revivifies and he’s still the same Inspector Spacetime.” 

“But Constable Reggie doesn’t.” Troy said in an empty sort of way.

“He should be allowed to.” I said firmly. Troy only blinked at me, so I continued, “Don’t you think?” And then he kissed me. 

I’m sure he meant to be gentle - he had cupped my face in his hands - but he moved very fast, our teeth clacked together, and he almost knocked me entirely backward. Still, Troy didn’t pull away. Which I took as an invitation to kiss him back, putting my hands over his. I couldn’t tell you how long we kissed for - because however long it was, it wasn't long enough - but I am pretty sure when I finally opened my eyes again the sun had begun to slowly creep into the sky.

Troy had pulled away and firmly pressed his forehead into mine. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

“You can sleep here.” I quietly supplied, “If you want.”

Troy nodded. I removed my hands from his, his hands slid off my cheeks, and we laid down right there on the floor. We had curled up facing each other and stayed there looking at each other for a second before Troy muttered, “No, this is stupid.” and he scooted forward to wrap an arm around me, fully intending to sleep that way. 

I fell asleep with the weight of Troy’s arm around my torso and when I woke up it was gone. And Troy was gone. 

“Abed!” I heard Annie call, “Breakfast! Troy is already loading up the car!”

_B: Abed?_

Troy and I never talked about it after, he just left. It was a goodbye, I think. Or a promise? An apology? Did he realize it was just an awful mistake and didn't want to talk about it ever again? Was it just moon madness? These were all bouncing around my head when I came to and found my feet had led me to the dark study room. I was still clutching my empty punch cup in my hand. 

“You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?” I sighed at the voice - my voice - and turned to face Evil Abed.

“Evil Abed?”

“Just Abed.”

“Other Abed. What are you doing here?”

“The spatial fabric between the timeline is thinning.” I said to me, “I’ve been able to travel between dimensions with relative ease. I’ve just been seeing the sights. This is my last stop.” I looked at me thoughtfully, “You’re thinking about him again.”

“...He left.”

“He does that sometimes.” Other Abed said, “Is he coming back?”

The funny thing was no one had ever asked me that, none of us had thought of it. It must’ve been accepted as a given, right? “I’m not so sure.” I said, then had a thought, “What are they like? The other timelines.”

“There isn’t a timeline where we don’t fall in love with Troy.” Evil Me shook his head.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“It’s what I - you - we - meant.” he - or I - said. “Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.” he continued.

“And does he...”

“I couldn’t tell you.” he said, “But yours is the brightest timeline... I wouldn’t give up on him yet if I were you. And you are. So you won’t.”

“Technically I’m not.” I said, “I’m a clone of the old Abed of this world.”

“We still share DNA then... maybe we should examine that.” Other Me pulled a small device out of his pocket - a small box with a latched lid. He stepped towards me, plucked a hair from my head, opened the small lid and placed the hair inside.

He placed the device on the ground between us and stepped away as it made a distant whirring sound. The box emitted a blue light, projecting a hologram of a strand of my own DNA before us. 

“You just carry that around with you?” I asked.

“It comes in handy,” he said simply. Other Me reached out to touch it, using his fingers to zoom in, “Ah, it’s still there.”

“What is?”

“You see that there?” he pointed to the display, tapping it and turning it the section he was referring to red against blue, “That right there. I’ve found it on every other Abed I’ve come across. Incredible that it remained after the gene replication.” he told me, “This is the Troy gene... I’m still workshopping the name. This is the gene that makes us love Troy.”

“... Can you -”

“No, I cannot remove it.” he shut off the display, “Well... I won’t” he pocketed the device.

“Why not?” I asked, “That’s unfair.”

But he wouldn’t answer. Other Abed only shook his head and began to turn dials on a band on his forearm, “I should go.” he said. He took one last look at me. I imagine it’s how I look at other people I feel pity for, “I know we don’t like waiting. Or being alone. Or change. But maybe give it a shot.”

And he was gone in a flash of blue light. 

_B: STOP! STOP! STOP!_

...

  
“STOP!” Britta stood all the way up, completely distressed, pacing, “OH MY GOD, ABED!”

“Woah, Britta!” Annie stood, “We get it, you’re jealous! But there’s no reason to -”

“No, Annie! I’m not!” Britta sniffled, “I ruined it, I Britta’d EVERYTHING! Abed, I’m so sorry!” 

“Why are you sorry?” Abed’s brow creased in confusion, “You did nothing wrong. You didn’t know.”

“YES. ABED! I did. Well. NO, wait. I only knew like a month ago. I didn’t know back when - Holy shit, Abed, holy SHIT.” Britta cried. She finally stopped for a second and looked around to find everyone staring at her like she had grown a second head, “There’s something I need to show you guys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I'm such a slut for cliffhangers, but you'll thank me later. If I told you where this was going after putting you through all of that you'd die on impact.  
> Thank you guys so much for sticking with this, I hope you're still enjoying this!!!!


	7. Breaking The Laptop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abed destroys Britta's laptop. With good reason.

Troy Barnes < buttsoupbarnes@gmail.com >

Subject: ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE

BRITTA I AM ALIVE PLEASE TELL ABED I’M OKAY

\---

Troy promised to stay in touch when he left but didn’t even make it to his first stop before coming face to face with real-life pirates. It was kind of like living in a detached sort of nightmare or dream for the week he was actively being held hostage.

Annie and Shirley always looked like they were on the verge of tears, Jeff was uncharacteristically quiet, the Dean did updates on the situation during morning announcements, and - worst of all - Abed continued on like everything was fine for five days. It was a little terrifying, watching Abed continue to do finger guns and movie references and hijinks while the world was falling apart. But that was five out of seven days of the week.

The last two days of the week, Abed did not come to school and no one even said a word about it. When she asked Annie about it, right at the moment she looked like she was maybe okay, her eyes threatened to spill over again.

“He... He wouldn’t even talk to me.” Annie said. She took a lower tone, as if she was telling a secret, “I know he’s been... but you guys don’t have to live with him. He hasn’t even turned the TV on since... you know... I don’t know what to do.” Annie seemed so upset, Britta didn’t pry like she usually would.

Britta was mostly relieved that she wouldn’t have to unpack all that when the news had announced that Levar and his Non-Celebrity Companion had been rescued. Things returned quickly to normal, besides the Dean announcing every day for the coming week that Troy was safe and sound. It wouldn’t be for another two weeks after their rescue that she would even get that first email from Troy, followed closely by a second.

\---

Troy Barnes < buttsoupbarnes@gmail.com >

Subject: RE: ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE

Okay wait i should explain 1. Pirates are SO not as cool as they are in the movies they were actually really scary and stuff do you still do therapy... forget i asked 2. we finally got to our first stop and levar bought me a new laptop after the pirates took mine which is kinda a huge bummer i had a lot of stuff on their 3. can you ask abed to email me??? every email i send him bounces back??? and the pirates took my phone to so i can’t call :((((( 4. how are you guys i hope i didn’t scare you too much we’re all good over here. me and levar are taking a break in cuba for a few weeks cause pirates but we’re gonna keep going. i can’t back down now.

\---

So, Britta - the good friend that she is - told Abed to email Troy. Or she tried to.

She had told the whole study group that Troy was alive and emailing - like the great friend she is - and added to Abed, sitting to her left, “By the way Troy told me to tell you to email him.”

Abed nodded, “Okay. Thanks, Britta.” Great, Britta thought, Mission accomplished!!! Apparently that was dead wrong, but she didn’t know that at the time.

Look, she and Troy may not have worked out as a couple they had remained close friends, a dynamic they fell much more naturally into. Britta is actually glad things didn’t work out now.

Britta read an article on love languages years ago when she was dating Troy. She doesn’t remember it too well now, but she remembers that Troy’s love language was “words of affirmation”. If Troy cares about you have to hear it about once a day.

She thinks maybe things hadn’t worked out because her love language is “acts of service”.

But she and Troy were much better as friends anyway! They emailed a lot, she kept him posted on current events. She had kinda missed Troy being her friend, you know? After they had stopped dating, Troy had felt so awkwardly guilty for a couple months. And even though he wasn’t back yet, it felt like she was finally getting her friend back.

Sometimes there was such a disconnect there when they were dating, it could’ve been easy to forget they were in the first place. Not that she ever did, of course not, that would be terrible!

Okay, maybe once or twice, but that was it!!!

One of the times she had forgotten, she had gone out to drinks one night with Jeff while they were dating and upon flipping over her buzzing phone and telling him “It’s Troy, I should take this.” was met with some rare genuine confusion from Jeff Winger.

“Is that still a thing?” he asked.

“What?” her eyes widened at the realization that there was a thing. “Yes. It’s still a thing.” she had said, defensively offended before picking up, “Hey, babe.” she said with a pointed look at Jeff.

“Hey, Britta.” said definitely not Troy, “It’s Abed. Troy wanted me to warn you that if you come over tonight that he’s working on fixing the remote cause it’s sparking again. So it might get dangerous over here.”

“...Okay.”

“Also Annie needs to know if you are staying over because she’s making pancakes tomorrow and she needs to know how many.”

“Nah, I don’t think I am... Sorry?”

“It’s cool,” Abed said in that detached Abed way, “Thanks though. Bye, Britta.”

“Bye, Abed?” she said over the dial tone.

“You sure that’s still a thing?” Jeff joked.

“Nah, that’s normal. You know how they are.” Britta said with a shrug, knowing that was totally not normal.

God, she was dumb for not seeing this coming!!!

“God, I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming,” she said, closing the door to Abed’s room behind her.

“None of us did, Britta.” Annie said, “Well, except Jeff somehow.”

“Whatever, I’m sick of Jeff being five steps ahead with his tongue down everyone’s throat.” Britta grumbled as they headed towards the elevators, “Thanks for coming with me, Annie.”

“Of course!” Annie hit the elevator button, going up, “Things are getting kinda intense in there anyway. Shirley will deescalate... or possibly escalate... is it just me or is Shirley kind of a wild card?” she shook off the thought as the elevator doors opened, “Besides, this must be kinda weird for you cause you and Troy, you know.”

“Puh-lease!” Britta rolled her eyes and stepped into the elevator, “That’s old news. And it was kinda hard to miss that Troy was into Abed when they did that whole Freaky Friday thing.”

“What? You knew?!” Annie looked like she wanted to stamp her foot like a child.

“I mean, Abed was telling me things Troy told him about me and Troy that Troy hadn’t even told me!”

“...Yes?” Annie scrunched her nose in confusion. The elevator doors closed with a slightly worrying clunk.

“I mean that Troy and I were dating. But... It was like Troy and Abed were married with a kid? You know? I thought it was just a weird co-dependent relationship at first and I was totally cool with that. But really? Having your husband break up with you for you? That was kind of the dead give away.”

“Well, why didn’t you say anything?!” Annie cried, “Wait. Was I the kid?”

“And what? Look like the jealous crazy ex-girlfriend so you could all laugh at me?” Britta scoffed, “Yeah, right. I know how society treats women who tell the truth. I saw the Crucible.”

“The Crucible is about the girls lying.”

“Okay, so maybe I haven’t seen the Crucible, but my point stands, Annie!” Britta declared, “We live in a society.”

“Britta, you could have prevented all of this!” Annie said with a furious look.

“Ugh, don’t remind me!” The elevator doors opened and Britta and Annie stormed through the opening doors in perfect step with each other, “But it’s not my fault! Why should it be a woman’s job to fix men? And how was I supposed to know that Abed liked Troy back?! I mean, you know as well as I do that he and Jeff had blatant sexual tension.”

“They kissed once, Britta!” Annie stopped Britta with a hand on the shoulder.

“Yeah! They kissed! After years of build-up!” Britta taunted, “It’s not like you and Jeff actually had any.”

“JUST GET THE LAPTOP, BRITTA.”

“Fine! God, you’re just jealous of Abed!” Britta stormed into her hotel room, leaving Annie making a noise akin to a seagull that had just been kicked.

“I am NOT jealous!” she cried when Britta returned from her room, her incredibly old laptop clutched in her arms.

“Whatever!” Britta shouted, marching past her back towards the elevators. Annie quickly fell back into step with her and smashed the down button to the elevator, “It doesn’t matter anymore!” Britta continued balefully, “I’ve already Britta’d everything.”

“Aww, Britta,” Annie pouted sympathetically, “You really did.”

“Gee,” Britta gritted her teeth, “Thanks.” Britta nearly continued, but the elevator doors slid open and it was, horrifically, not empty.

“Um.” David blinked, apparently sensing the tension, “Hey, guys? What’s -”

“GIRL STUFF.” Annie and Britta said in grating unison and pushed past David onto the elevator as he exited into the hallway. Before he could get another word in edgewise, Annie was tapping the close doors button and the doors quickly shut upon his wide eyes.

“Okay, let’s see,” Britta flipped open her laptop, balancing it on her forearm.

“What is it anyway?” Annie peered over her shoulder.

“Me and Troy, we email and stuff.” Britta opened up internet explorer window that must’ve had thirty-something tabs open and began to click through everyone until she found her gmail account, “And...” Britta suddenly seemed mortified again as all her frustration melted away. Annie could see her cursor hover over the x in the up-right corner, “Well. He may have said some things. And then I said... some unhelpful things -”

“Okay. That’s it.” Annie shifted the laptop into her arms, “You’re freaking out. Let me take over.”

“Pfft. Like you’re not freaking out.” Britta grumbled but conceded the laptop to Annie with no fight whatsoever. She instead settled for leaning against the elevator wall and left Annie to scroll rapidly through her and Troy’s messages.

\---

Troy Barnes < buttsoupbarnes@gmail.com >

Subject: BRITTA

BRITTA!

what’s your favorite color again??? it’s orange right????? i’m getting you a kimono.  
also tell everyone i say hi!!!!!

LOVE YOU  
troy

\---

Troy Barnes < buttsoupbarnes@gmail.com >

Subject: JAPAN!!!!!

BRITTA

we just landed at our first stop!!!! did you know japan has cafes JUST FOR CATS??? britta i wish you were here you would love it!!! there was this one cat that sat on levar’s lap like the whole time purring i may have been crying that’s not important whatever

i’m gonna bring you guys back some candy. levar says it won’t be good by the time we get back, but it’ll only be like a year!!!

btw hows study group doing??? you guys miss me yet hahahahah

LOVE YOU  
Troy

\---

Troy Barnes < buttsoupbarnes@gmail.com >

Subject: KOALAS

BRITTA levar and i landed in australia and i hate it here did you know how big the bugs are here???? i mean i’m not like scared or anything it’s just gross. okay maybe i’m scared of big gross bugs. BUT i’m gonna hold a koala today and i am HYPED.

tell everyone i say hi!!! how is everyone doing??? not that i haven’t been like hearing from people i just want your like therapize opinion nothing weird OKAY BYE LOVE YOU

LOVE YOU  
troy

\---

Troy Barnes < buttsoupbarnes@gmail.com >

Subject: RE: KOALAS

britta if anyone asks about the scar on my eyebrow? it was from pirates. not a koala.

\---

“Geez, chatty much, you two?” Annie scrolled even faster until she seemingly found something of interest to her. Britta knew exactly what Annie had found by the way her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and tried to bury her face in her hands to avoid those eyes. “Oh, god, Britta.” Annie said as the doors slid open, “What have you done?”

Britta opened the door to Abed’s room slowly to find everyone pretty much where they had left them - Jeff and Shirley trying to get Abed to sit down. All of their eyes snapped to them as soon as she and Annie stepped through the door.

“God,” Jeff said, “Who died?”

“What?!” Abed and Shirley snapped in unison.

“He’s not dead!” Britta put her hands up defensively.

“It’s worse.” Annie said flatly.

“Oh my god.” Jeff rolled his eyes and snatched the laptop out of Annie’s hands with ease, “Give me that.” He only took so much as a glance at it before his eyes widened, “Oh god. Britta!”

Shirley peered over Jeff’s shoulder, on her tiptoes, “Oh lord.” she muttered.

“What?” Abed asked quietly, but it startled everyone in the room. “What is it?” he demanded in a firmer tone. The rest of the remaining study group shared wary looks for a moment before Britta stepped forward.

“Abed,” she said evenly, placing a hand on his shoulder, “I just want you to know... I didn’t know what you were planning,” she continued quicker, “Or how you felt and -”

“Give me the laptop.” Abed brushed Britta’s hand away and turned to Jeff, holding out an expectant arm.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to paraphrase for you?” Jeff asked, eyes still glued to the screen, “There’s... There’s a lot to unpack here.” Shirley winced at something she had just read to emphasize his point, but Abed wouldn’t budge.

Jeff shared a look with Annie, who gave him a little nod as if to say Abed could handle it. Or maybe that he should handle it. Jeff wasn’t actually sure, but he warily handed Abed the laptop anyway.

“I think you...” Jeff scrolled up a little over Abed’s shoulder, “Should start here.” Abed nodded.

“‘Britta. I -’” he began.

“Do we really need to read this out loud?” Britta asked.

“Yes.” Abed said flatly, “You should all hear this.” and added, with a pointed look at Britta, “All of it.”

\---

Troy Barnes < buttsoupbarnes@gmail.com >

Subject: P A S T A

BRITTA! I HAVE NEVER HAD BETTER SPAGHETTI IN MY LIFE HOLY SHIT I

\---

“Um, maybe start at the end of this one?”

“Oh. Alright”

\---

me and Levar are going to France tomorrow!!! he said i have to see paris??? i dont know what the deal is i don’t think it’s actually going to be as cool as he says it’s gonna be but hey i probably won’t ever have to go there again so why not :/

tell everyone back home i say hi!!! and tell abed i say congrats!!!! LOVE YOU

troy

\---

Troy Barnes < buttsoupbarnes@gmail.com >

Subject: RE: P A S T A

okay fuck it

britta i’m really sorry i don’t want to like dump this on you or whatever but levar doesn’t get it and youre like a therapist so maybe you can help??? i know you told me tht you told abed that i told him to email me or whatever and that was like forever ago but he never did and i don’t know why and now he’s getting married and he didnt even tell me about his boyfriend is he mad at me for leaving??? did he say anything to you about it??? can you give me his email

\---

Troy Barnes < buttsoupbarnes@gmail.com >

Subject: RE: RE: P A S T A

fuck britta im sorry forget i said anything

\---

Troy Barnes < buttsoupbarnes@gmail.com >

Subject: RE: RE: RE: P A S T A

it’s just i can’t stop thinking about it. britta i totally messed it up didn’t i  
im sorry i had a lot of wine just act like you didnt see any of these!!!!!! Thx

\---

Troy Barnes < buttsoupbarnes@gmail.com >

Subject: (no subject)

OKAY REAL TALK BRITTA I FUCKED UP

Levar and i got to paris last ngiht and we spent today doing tourist-y things and honestly i didnt think this was a super big deal. Like i’ve seen superman two i kno what the eiffel tower looks like. But when we got here last night i didn’t really get a chance to like actually look around?

I always thought that the whole “paris is for lovers” thing was like just a cliche in movies but there are couples everywhere. Like all over the place!! And levar didn’t seem to notice it or care at all and i kept getting this bad feeling in my stomach - bad butterflies??? squirmy worms. I just felt like garbage!! And not jst because i was kinda hungover. Lieke abed’s been full blown ignoring me for like over a year and i didnt even ask you for a way to contact him cause i didnt want to bug him i guess but maybe hes waiting for ME to reach out first and im just being stupid and i wasnt even sure why i was that upset but i knew i didnt want all these HAPPY PEOPLE around me i wanted to punch levar right in the face just cause he was s miling .

And then me and levar went to the eiffel tower - alllll the way to the top which was actually super cool except nothing about it felt very cool then? and he was like pointing out stuff on the ground and talking about how great the viiew was but i wouldnt know cause i just kept looking at all the couples everywhere.

and there was this one couples and they were whispering and leaning over the railing and laughing like they had this secret like no one else knew and i just felt GROSS and i was just wondering if abed and his fiance were like that? If they had inside jokes and if he ever made abed laugh the way he does when you actually get him to smile without him doing it to make you happy or feel comfortable where his eyes crinkle up and you kinda want to make him laugh so much that he’ll get crows feet so you can see forever that you made him that happy that many times and then i thought “holy shit im in love with abed” and that’s when i threw up over the side of eiffel tower cause THATS one of the things i wanted to do while i was in france

But the point is i’ve missed abed so much for so long and i’ve been trying not to think about it. I needed to go be me and i left him behind. That’s a thing i did. And i’m learning lots about myself. Loads. Super cool. And i dont want to like FORCE myself on abed if he wants to do the same thing but if thinking about how much i love abed is going to make me sick?? then i dont think i’m giving him a say anymore. Cause i’ve spent too much time not letting myself be in love with him.

Not that i didnt ever know i LIKED abed of course i did! HE’S ABED. but he’s always been WAY out of my league and i didnt think he’d ever like me cause GUESS WHAT BRITTA? IM A MEATHEAD. So i just decided “well thats okay! Lots of people like me! Me and abed are best friends anyway right?! i'll just like some other people and move on!!” and i thought i did i really did and like we dated and stuff! Which was like cool you’re like super cool and oh god this is so weird isnt it? Is it weird that i’m telling you this? Whatever i gotta tell someone and you’re like one of my best friends anyway so just act like this isn’t weird. cool? cool.

So i totally thought i moved on, like grown ups do you know? But i’m not sure i did anymore? I think i just ignored the fact that i was straight up falling in love with my best friend. and i’m sorry cause that’s actually really unfair to you. And me. And abed.

I kissed him before i left. Like on his face. On his MOUTH. Like i couldnt help it and i was scared okay? i was too scared to talk about it the next day because honestly i didn’t even know what I was DOING i was like POSSESSED or something I’m just CONFUSED and SAD that I’m leaving and those feelings i used to feel about him were all up in the air and it was just a kiss RIGHT ? W R O N G turns out I’m just so in love with him that i didn’t even see it. god i’m dumb. britta he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me!!! loving him is like BREATHING? I think? Does that make sense? you know what? i don’t care.

I’m coming home. and by home i mean abed cause he said he gave me homing pigeon dna and its kicking in. if we leave for LA tomorrow i should be there before the wedding. give me abeds email or his number or his ANYTHING and tell him i’m coming home

\---

At Abed’s reading of those last few lines, everyone seemed to take an intake of breath and hold it all at once. Abed looked up, glanced around at them all, and looked back down at the screen. He took in a breath and began, “Troy...”

\---

Britta Perry < pittabrerry@gmail.com >

Subject: RE: (no subject)

Troy,

First of all i wanna say i’m so proud of you for coming to terms with this part of yourself

\---

A chorus of groans passed around the room at that. “Skip to the bad part!” Jeff declared.

Abed’s eyes snapped up again, bringing them all to a sudden silence once again. He glanced over at Jeff and nodded wordlessly. He skimmed the opening paragraph before finally finding his name in the third.

\---

I don’t know how to say this and im really sorry i dont wanna be a huge bummer but... Troy, Abed’s happy. Like really happy and getting married and stuff and I guess what I’m trying to say is maybe you’re too late. And I don’t want you to come back just so Abed can break your heart because you deserve better than that.

I’m going to send you Abed’s email and number so you two can talk about this, but you shouldn’t have to derail your whole life for some guy. If you ever need to talk about this more with me to it’s totally not weird don’t worry. I mean I’ve already seen your penis! XD

\---

Troy Barnes < buttsoupbarnes@gmail.com >

Subject: (no subject)

Britta saying you saw my penis definitely just made it weird??? But i think you might actually be right aboout this. I’ll email abed and maybe we can talk things out i guess. I’ll keep you posted  
Thnaks so much britta :)

\---

Abed snapped the laptop shut with surprising aggression, making everyone in the room jump. “He never emailed me,” he said flatly.

“Abed -”

“You told him I was happy. And you implied that him returning to my life would make me unhappy.” Abed said thoughtfully. He blinked at Britta for a second. And then, suddenly, smashed Britta’s laptop to the floor. Abed brought his foot down, stamping and jumping on the laptop in an apathetic rage, and the room erupted in shouting. Voices overlapped each other in various cries in horror.

“My laptop!”

“Britta, oh my GOD!”

“Oh, Abed, sweetie!”

“Oh my god, ABED?”

“Um, am I Interrupting something?” In response, the whole room - besides Abed, still despondent - united in one shriek of surprise before descending into silence. Abed looked up from the laptop on the ground, ceasing to destroy it any further.

“Frankie?!” Annie said shrilly, with the akest chuckle you’ve ever heard, “What are you doing here??”

Frankie, in her grooms maid power suit (as suggested by Abed himself), stood half way through the doorway with what could only be described as absolute terror on her face. “Um. I?” she took a step into the room towards Abed, “Abed, I’m... I’m really sorry.” she held out a piece of paper towards Abed. Abed simply looked at it, emotionless.

“I can...” Jeff stepped up and took the paper from Frankie, with a sideways look at Annie who was practically vibrating, “I’m the... grooms... something...” He opened up slightly crumpled paper and looked it over. “‘Abed.’” he began to read, “‘I’m so sorry. I can’t do this. I’m not’...” his eyebrows his his hairline, voice becoming triumphant, “...’I’m not ready to get married. I’ll always love you. David.’” he finished, “AHA!”

The room once again exploded, now with victory. Annie and Britta jumped up and down in each other's arms, screaming. Shirley made a high pitched noise and Jeff dropped the paper, wrapping her in a hug. The hugs became a group hug between the four, the shouting turning into a cohesive chant of: “ABED’S NOT GETTING MAARRIED. ABED’S NOT GETTING MAARRIED!! ABED’S NOT GETTING MAARRIED!!”

“What is WRONG with you?” Frankie shouted over them, but far from putting a stop to the celebrating.

Britta broke out of the circle. “Abed was going to leave DAVID! We thought this was gonna be so AWKWARD!” she hugged Frankie, close to joyful tears, “Abed must be -” her eyes snapped open, “Oh god, Abed?” she let go of Frankie, who was still confused, and turned to Abed.

He was still standing where he had when Frankie came in, looking extremely lost. Britta reached out to him as the cheering died down. All eyes once again fell on Britta and Abed.

“Abed...” she wiped her eyes, “Abed,” “I am... so sorry.” Abed’s eyes finally focused on Britta at the sound of an apology. He looked like his eyes might have spilled over. He seemed to look her up and down with a terminator-like stare, like he could see all the bones in her body and Britta was sure he was thinking about every single one of them.

“You Britta’d my happy ending.” And with that, Abed took long strides through the small crowd and out the door.

Silence hung over the room for what felt like forever after Abed left. Britta felt like she wanted to throw up.

“Okay.” Jeff finally said, passively angry, “Who’s going after Abed, who’s emailing Troy, and who’s explaining to Frankie what the hell is going on.”

“I can go after him.” Annie nodded, now determined.

“I’ll come.” Britta volunteered.

“NO.” said everyone in unison at varying volumes.

“Shirley, you’re Abed’s mom.” Jeff said, “You go with Annie. You,” he pointed at Britta, “Are going to explain this garbage fire you started to poor Frankie.”

“Garbage fire?” Frankie asked.

“Exactly.” Jeff said, still looking at Britta, “I’m going to email Troy. Since apparently you can’t be trusted with a goddamn computer.” he pulled out his phone and began to type aggressively.

“What happened?” Frankie asked Britta warily, “This time.”

“I’ll grab my purse.” Shirley said.

“There’s no time!” Annie cried and tugged Shirley towards the door, “We gotta go! It’s LA, he could be anywhere!”

“He couldn’t have gone that far.” Shirley grumbled and pulled out her own phone, “I’ll call him. I’m sure he’s going to be fine.”

Annie rolled her eyes and dashed across the room to grab Abed’s phone, buzzing softly. “We’re wasting time!” she hung up on Shirley’s call and went to pocket the phone, heading towards the door again, “We gotta...” she caught a glance at the screen of the phone. “Um. Why does Abed have... thirty missed calls from an unknown number?”

That’s when the door was thrown very unceremoniously open - well, kicked open. Annie and Shirley jumped back with a shout of surprise, making way for one face they hadn’t seen in a long time.

“ABED?!”

The room fell to silence once again, all eyes turned to the man Abed had been waiting for.

“Okay,” Troy Branes said out of breath, “Where the hell is Abed. I tried every room on this floor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're in the endgame now.  
> thank you all for such amazing positive feedback, i hope i'm not letting y'all down!!


	8. Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made Of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Troy dreams on the way back to LA and his entire brain inverts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM BACK AND THIS IS THE LONGEST ONE YET  
> ITS TROY TIME BABEY

It was a reoccurring dream he’d been having since he left. 

He’s on the Childish Tycoon, but it looks nothing like the Childish Tycoon. It’s less like a fancy person boat and more like a pirate ship. He’s steering it with this big old looking steering wheel, one you would see in a Pirates of the Carribean movie. There’s storm clouds up ahead, but for now he’s under a sunny blue cloudless sky. 

LeVar isn’t there with him at all. Instead his companion is sitting up in the crows nest. 

“Abed!” Troy calls up, “Set phasers to starboard!” he says, because it makes sense in the dream. 

Abed slides down the ladder from the crows nest. Sometimes he’s dressed in exactly what he was wearing when Troy left. Sometimes he’s wearing his pajamas. This time he’s dressed in full pirate regalia - Troy’s favorite. 

And Abed never speaks in these dreams, like he does in others, but goes about helping Troy sail the ship. This time is different. 

For the first time in this recurring dream, Abed does not set any phasers to anything, does no related boat hijinks of any sort. Instead goes about preparing a little wooden lifeboat that was not there before. 

“Where are you going?” Troy asks, abandoning the wheel to follow Abed. Abed doesn’t respond. “Abed?” No response. “Abed!” Suddenly Abed is looking up at him, but there’s nothing behind his eyes. “What’s wrong?” Troy asks, “Do we need to go?” 

Abed points a finger at himself.

“Just... Just you?” Troy frowns, “No. No, I should come with you.”

Abed shakes his head with empty eyes and turns back to preparing the dingy. Troy’s stomach drops.

“Abed!” Troy calls out to Abed, despite being only a couple feet away, but his own voice sounds distant to his ears. “Abed!” He kneels down beside Abed. “Abed, please!” 

He places a hand on Abed’s shoulder and before he can notice a change, the light dims. The blue sky becomes a blue sheet and a screen flickers somewhere behind him, shining in Abed’s eyes and illuminating his puffy white pirate shirt. 

Abed looks back in this ocean now pillow fort and for the first time in this dream there’s something behind his eyes. Troy gets deja vu. 

And then Troy woke up on the train to Paris.

Troy was no stranger to dreams. Literally, Troy has dreamed often and vividly for as long as he can remember. When he had told this to Abed, Abed had revealed to him that he never dreamed. 

“Never? You _never_ dream?”

“Well, technically we’re always dreaming. It’s just sometimes you can remember them.” Abed said, “I just never can.”

But thinking of Abed right now is deepening the pit in his stomach. And not just because that dream was ominous. Troy remembered Annie used to call dreams like that “stress dreams”. Troy thinks that’s just a fancy way of saying nightmare.

What’s he supposed to be stressed out about anyway? Abed never talking to him? 

Oh. Right.

It’s cool though, he thinks. He left to find himself, maybe Abed is just finding himself at home! That’s what Troy’s been telling himself. And pretty much telling no one else. 

Being kidnapped by pirates had been totally awful and at the time he was just glad to get out of there when the ocean cops showed up. (That’s what they’re called right? Troy’s pretty sure.) But he wishes he could go back to that pirate ship sometimes so he could get his phone back. He didn’t have any numbers memorized, he realized, least of all Abed. And once he had gotten a new laptop, the small one he now kept in his backpack, Abed’s Greendale email had only ever bounced every email back into his inbox. He’d even remembered the inexplicable misspelling that every Greendale school email had (two Bs in Abed). Nothing. And Abed never reached out in return.

He’s mainly been confiding in Britta. He talks to Annie, Jeff, and Shirley too, but they don’t correspond like Britta does. And Troy loves Britta - as a friend! Of course. That had been well established as a platonic love. The thing is he doesn’t _like_ the idea of talking about this with Britta. That time with the wine he and LeVar had scored in Italy was a _mistake_ in his book.

It feels weird for reasons he can’t entirely put together. Britta would probably Britta telling him about Abed anyway, right? Hell, maybe she Britta’d telling Abed to contact him. He knows she reported back to tell Troy she had done so, but maybe she had given Abed the wrong email... But that still wouldn’t explain why Abed hadn’t tried to get the _right_ email. 

If you couldn’t tell, Troy didn’t like to think about it. But lately he’s been thinking about it more and more since he had heard Abed was getting married. 

The wedding e-vite was just sitting in his inbox and he knows it was supposed to be, like, an invite on _principle_ . But that hadn’t made it any harder for him to email Annie back and say he wasn’t coming to this wedding of Abed and a man Troy had never even met. This man that Troy has never met and yet hates! Maybe it was the way his suit in the accompanying engagement photo fit him just so, maybe it was his dopey smile, maybe it was the way he was looking at Abed - as if _he_ knew Abed well enough to look at him like that.

But oh well, Troy had thought, it doesn’t really matter if I like him or not. Troy didn’t know this guy! Why would he hate him? And with that he decided to not think of Abed the rest of the day as the train began to slow.

Well, Troy knew he was on the ditzy side. He used to hate admitting it, but the family he found at Greendale never seemed to mind. Least of all Abed (who he certainly was not thinking about that day except he totally was). 

But there is some next level empty headedness that led to Troy totally missing that he was in love with Abed. 

Wouldn’t you throw up onto the meandering couples at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower if you realized you had missed three years tops of being in love with the greatest person you know? 

Those couples probably deserved it anyway, Troy thought, for being so happy while he had to be here. In the city of lovers. Just realizing he was one.

“Woah!” LeVar cried, placing what should have been comforting hands on Troy’s shoulders. But Troy did not feel comforted, just mildly claustrophobic. “Geez, Troy you should’ve told me you’re afraid of heights!”

“I’m not scared!” Troy said, wiping his mouth and descending into tears in a way that made him feel distinctly like a toddler, “My brain just inverted, LeVar!” People were beginning to stare, including the couple responsible for this horrific brain wrinkle. “You should be ASHAMED of yourselves!” Troy shrieked.

“Okay, I think it’s time to go.” LeVar said, guiding Troy away towards the elevator, “Deep breaths, kiddo, deep breaths.”

Troy tried to follow LeVar’s example of deep breaths until the elevator doors shut. Even though other tourists were in the elevator around them, Troy elected to sit down on the floor against the wall and wrap his arms around his knees in an attempt to collect his thoughts. And those thoughts were actually little baseballs. And now a thousand little Troys were hitting those thought baseballs with little baseball bats and every single one was a home run, hitting him directly in his central feelings cortex, as Abed had called it.

Oh god. Abed.

“Your central feelings cortex is just overloaded.” Abed had said the first time he’d seen Troy, really cry the way Troy does when his whole brain freaks out.

“Well, how do I fix it?” Troy had sniffed.

“It’s not a bad thing.” Abed said, “Feeling a lot isn't bad at all, really. Especially showing it. It just means you care about things a lot. It’s what makes you...”

“Lame?”

“I was going to say ‘you’,” Abed gave him a puzzled look, “Do you think you’re lame? You’re not.” He stated with all the certainty Abed had. He reached out a hand to Troy’s face, wiping away a tear with his thumb. Troy’s breath caught in his throat.

“You’re probably the least lame person I know.” Abed said as he drew his hand away. Troy remembers wishing that Abed would’ve kept his hand there or even kissed him right there. And then thinking ‘What? That’s weird. I’m not gay.’ 

But that was years ago now, all the way back during their first year at Greendale. And something about the combination of his new freedom from expectations of his friends to be the cool straight football guy, moving out of his parent’s house, Abed’s dark mysterious eyes, and Clive Owen made Troy realize that maybe he thought guys were hot too. Especially Abed.

But, hey, Abed wasn’t interested. That’s okay! Troy’s dating pool had just doubled! 

Troy thought he moved past that. _Way_ past that. Dating a whole other person for a year past that. 

But nooooo! All Troy had done was turn on a movie and then left the room without making sure he paused it. And he had just come back to find he had missed a big plot point, only to have the end of the movie make no sense. 

Troy was really wishing Abed was here to wipe his tears away again now.

LeVar sighed, “Okay.” And proceeded to sit down on the floor of the elevator next to him, “What’s wrong. I haven’t seen you this bad since the koala thing.” LeVar seemed to cringe.

“Hey! I put my trust in that koala and he betrayed me!” Troy responded petulantly.  
  


Troy was very lucky to have LeVar with him on this trip because, for all intents and purposes, LeVar was like a real adult. He knew how to pay taxes, he had a family, he had a career, and Troy would like to do all those things. But LeVar also had the emotional intelligence of an adult that Troy was apparently still working on. 

Sometimes, less often than he used to now, Troy would just feel things and not be able to put together why. He had started to get better at that part of feelings, but having LeVar around to ask inciting questions like “And this is a big deal because?” or “Are you upset?” or “Do you still sleep with a teddy bear?” helped him connect some dots. But Troy had a feeling there were no more to connect. Like he’d drawn the last piece of yarn to the last thumbtack on the web that was the unsolved mysteries of his mind. 

“I’m in love with Abed.” 

“The Abed you talk about all the time?” LeVar asked, “The director?” Troy nodded. “You didn't know?” 

Troy’s jaw dropped and he made a sound like a character in one of those movies Annie likes. “NO, LEVAR.” He shouted, drawing startled glares from the other passengers of their elevator, “I DID NOT KNOW. I JUST THROW UP IF I THINK TOO HARD SOMETIMES. NO, I DID NOT KNOW.”

“Woah, woah, okay, I get it, you didn’t know.” LeVar rubbed Troy’s back in a fatherly way that just served to make Troy feel claustrophobic.

“No, LeVar, you don’t get it.” Troy groaned, “Let me break this down for you.” He counted off on his fingers, “Not _only_ did I ditch my best friend at Greendale. After he throws himself into hot lava for me! He’s also been ignoring me for three years. And now? He’s getting married. To someone I don’t even know! And one day I wake up in _France_ and I realize I’m in love with him NOW?”

“Well...” LeVar said, absolutely baffled in a way he had gotten used to when talking to Troy, “The path of true love never did run smooth?” He tried to say encouragingly.

Troy sniffed, “What the hell does that even mean, LeVar?!” 

“What? It’s Shakespeare.” 

“So?” 

“It means... I guess, that love isn’t easy. It’s messy. Something you have to fight for.” LeVar said. Troy nodded, listening intently. “You know, in the context of the play -”

“Shut up.” Troy said. LeVar was totally right. He did have to fight. “We gotta stop Abed’s wedding.” he said as the elevator doors opened.

“We what?” LeVar stood up as the elevator was evacuated.

“Okay, fine,” Troy followed suit and left the elevator, “ _I’ll_ go stop Abed’s wedding.”

“You’re just gonna go crash his wedding -”

“I was invited, but continue.”

“And tell him, ‘hey I know we haven’t spoken in years, but I love you don’t get married’?” LeVar asked.

“Yeah! That’s perfect!” Troy grinned and clapped LeVar on the back, “Thanks man, I knew you’d get it.” He continued over past the line for the second elevator to take them the rest of the way down, opting instead for the stairs. 

Troy had gained an appreciation for loopholes while at Greendale. Annie used to compare it to Wonderland - there were rules, but they were all nonsensical. To navigate Greendale, you have to know the rules and, more importantly, all the loopholes. And if there’s anyone who knew loopholes, it was Jeff.

Jeff had insisted on being Troy’s lawyer while going over the exact terms of PIerce’s will. It did make Troy feel a little better, having Jeff looking out for him like that. And having him absolutely tear the will apart was fun too.

“Okay, so you _have_ to do the long fishing trip.” Jeff had said, “But Pierce never specifies where. He just says see the world. Take the boat. It’s actually not super specific.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s kinda pushing it, but you could come back... to the states, I mean.” Jeff clarified, “You know, as long as you’ve never been. And you’d _technically_ need to use the boat to get there. Not that it’s practical, anyway. You could probably get away with it once.”

“Do you just want me to come back soon?”

“You know that I can’t admit that.” Jeff had smirked. Troy had noted that information, but he never thought he’d actually use it. If he really wanted to see more of the US, he’d just do it after he got back. No biggie.

But Troy was ready to use his freebie.

He’ll admit, Britta’s response to his plan was a little bit of a let down. Okay, maybe a huge let down. Maybe he cried over it a little. It’s not important. What is important, Troy decided, was not listening to Britta. Or LeVar when he told him this may not be the best idea. Or anyone, actually. In fact, no one else needs to know about this he thinks.

Troy spent so much time doing what other people told him and the one thing he actually learned at Greendale was that living that way sucked.

And yeah, worst case scenario Abed was happy without him. But he needs to at least talk to Abed, to _see_ him, and resolve this whole “Hey, I’ve Been In Love With You This Whole Time” plot twist. So he writes Britta a short response back and leaves for the train station without another thought.

That night, now back on the sea, he dreams he married Britta. That they live in a house with a white picket fence, surrounded by other houses with white picket fences that all look exactly the same. They even have a baby and over breakfast they discuss the baby’s college applications, even though it’s literally just a baby.

He goes to work at the air conditioner store, where he works with Annie and Jeff who are both his managers. It seems like Troy is the only person in the store who isn't a manager. They talk in perfect unison, but they also seem to hate each other. They wouldn’t even look at each other.

On the way home from work, Troy passes by his neighbor's house. He walks right up to the front door and knocks. Troy knows who is behind that door. He can feel him on the other side of the door, waiting. Troy knocks again. And again. And again. And he never gets an answer. 

He has this dream a lot on the way to LA. 

...

So Troy was pretty sure he was going to have a heart attack.

He was running out of time. Troy and LeVar had pushed and skipped a whole stop just so he could get there in time for the wedding date. It was frankly a miracle they had gotten there when they did.

Troy had no dreams for the week leading up to his arrival. Because he didn’t sleep for the week leading up to his arrival. The last time he had slept, he dreamt of the wedding. Not the one he planned to crash. 

He dreamt that he was marrying Abed in a massive blanket and pillow fort. Star Wars patterned sheets, covered in stars and planets and star ships, and christmas lights hung above their heads like the night sky itself.

He stood at the front of a congregation of guests that he couldn’t quite make out the faces of as he watched Abed walk down the center aisle towards him, dressed in a black suit and his Batman cape. As soon as Abed met him at the front, another Troy emerged from the back shouting, “Stop! That Troy’s an evil clone! I’m the real Troy! You have to shoot him!” Despite trying to convince Abed that he was the real Troy, Abed had chosen to shoot him with the laser gun he had pulled out of nowhere anyway. The last thing Troy had seen before waking up was Abed’s indifferent eyes and the other Troy grinning in a very evil clone sort of way over his shoulder.

Troy has no clue what any of that was supposed to mean, but sleep didn’t appear to be in the cards for him after that. How he hasn’t passed out from exhaustion at his point is a mystery to both him and LeVar. 

He says a quick goodbye to LeVar at the docks, thanks him for everything, says an awkward hello/thank you/goodbye to LeVar’s family who have brought him a burner phone, and gets in a taxi.

The e-vite had said the ceremony started at 1 p.m. Troy got into the taxi at 1 p.m. Needless to say, he’s freaking out. He has the number Britta gave him written on his arm - Abed’s number.

_“It’s Abed. I can’t come to the phone right now. You know what to -”_ Troy hangs up every single time before the tone. He doesn’t even know what to say in a message. He’s pretty sure he’ll just scream.

Instead he bites the inside of his cheek and calls it. And calls it. And call it. And calls it. And keeps calling it.

_“It’s Abed. I can’t come to the phone right now. You know -”_

In the back of the taxi, listening to the phone ring, is where Troy realizes he hasn’t changed his clothes in literal _days_ , opting on staying on deck for three days straight to sail day and night since he wasn’t able to sleep anyway. 

He reeks like sea water or sweat or _both._ Either way it’s salty. He feels practically naked in his bermuda shorts and t-shirt from Japan - one of the ones that said a random english word on it, because they look cool. Troy realizes that he is actually wearing that and cringes. 

Great, he’s about to go declare his love with Abed with the word “milky” written across his chest. Very romantic, Troy!

_“It’s Abed. I can’t come to the phone right now. You -”_

He hasn’t even shaved, letting his beard and hair grow out a little over the past month or so. What if Abed didn’t even recognize him? “It’s me, Troy!” he can hear himself saying in his head, “We were best friends in college! I’m here to stop your wedding!” 

_“It’s Abed. I can’t come to the phone right -”_ Troy hangs up a little harder that time.

That’s not even technically true anymore. Troy is technically only the clone of the Troy Abed had gone to college with. And this Abed getting married is technically a clone too. Clone or not, Troy shares all the same memories and he’s been realizing that pretty much makes him the same Troy. Clone Troy remembers what it feels like to be with Abed. To make movies, build blanket forts, fight blorgons, share bunk beds, he could go on forever. 

_“It’s Abed. I can’t come to -”_

And that’s why Clone Troy had kissed Clone Abed, hadn’t it. The original Troy would’ve never had the guts, he thinks. But it’s not like Clone Troy had the guts to even say anything after. Maybe that’s why Clone Abed hadn’t spoken to him since he left. Had he too gained clarity of his original self? Realized he never needed Troy? Did he once love Troy in a way the clone couldn’t or had he reverted like Clone Troy had? 

Was Troy just a bad kisser? 

_“It’s Abed -”_

Troy thinks he might die. 

_“It’s Abed -”_

And then the taxi stops. 

The little hotel is by the beachside. It’s small and vaguely quaint, something out of an indie movie that Abed would love. Of course Abed wants to get married by the sea, Troy thinks, it’s very cinematic. He would take more time to appreciate that if he had the time. 

He wills himself to forget clones and practically launches his body out of the taxi and into the lobby. He spots a clock above the check in desk - 1:47 p.m. 

_Abed’s probably married by now._

Troy’s whole brain almost starts crying until he sees how many guests are standing around in the lobby, very much not watching Abed get married. He might still have a chance. He can’t back down now.

He wills himself not to cry, straightens up, takes a deep breath, and approaches the woman at the front desk. Okay, he thinks, act normal until you can find Abed. Act normal. Find Abed. Act normal. Find Abed. Act normal. 

And then he sees a face that he had, whether he liked it or not, ingrained in his brain.

The man that was going to marry the man he was in love with walked out of the elevator... Whatever his name was. Troy couldn’t really remember.

Well, acting normal just flew out of the window.

“Excuse me,” Troy said absently to the front desk woman and promptly wandered into What’s-His-Name’s path, stopping him with his hand and a “Oh my gosh, look who it is!” of faked recognition. What’s-His-Name looked shaken and gave Troy a terrified look that didn’t really become a groom on his wedding, “It’s me! Abed’s friend...” Troy glanced around the room, spotting a framed photo on the wall of a - “... Horse.” Whatever fear was already etched into What’s-His-Name’s face deepend when Troy mentioned Abed, but Troy charged ahead, “Hey, do you know what floor he’s on maybe? Asking for totally normal reasons.”

“Um.” What’s-His-Name stuttered, “Second floor? Look, man -” he tried to go on.

“Awesome, Thanks. ” Troy said, not listening and promptly jumping into the elevator behind What’s-His-Name, “Oh, also,” he slapped the 2 button, “I’m about to cancel your wedding.” he added as the doors closed. 

What’s-His-Name’s face scrunched up in confusion, said awkwardly, “But... It is?” And the doors closed on him.

Troy blinked. It is... what? “Huh,” He shrugged. And the elevator doors opened to the second floor. That’s when Troy realized he didn’t know what room Abed was in. 

He knocked on about three doors. “Abed?” No answers. 

He banged on the fourth one before opting to just look inside to find it empty. 

Already growing anxious, he opened the fifth door with a shout to find... practically everyone but Abed.

“Okay,” Troy said, out of breath, “Where the hell is Abed. I tried every room on this floor.”

Troy got a second where everyone in the room was frozen, just staring at him as if they had seen a ghost. Shirley had lost some weight. Britta’s hair was darker. Annie aged 10 years - Except wait, that’s not Annie. Troy doesn’t actually know who that is. The actual Annie is actually right next to him. She seemed visually the same, but she somehow looked way more mature than he ever thought she could look. They all wore identical and... hilariously ugly dresses. Of course. That’s one of Abed’s favorite gags. 

“What.” Troy glances up at the sound of a familiar voice. Jeff has aged well, Troy thinks, but he looks pretty pissed, “The. Hell.” Jeff finishes, mouth agape. 

The room explodes with shouts of “TROY!” and “WHAT?!” and “OH MY GOD.” Britta launches herself at Troy in perfect unison with Annie and their combined force knocks all of them all the way to the ground. They all go down, falling on their asses, laughing and grinning. Troy’s laughing so hard, he feels tears slip out of his eyes. 

“We didn’t think that you were coming!” Annie says beaming.

Troy is just so glad to see Annie, because oh my god it’s _Annie_. Who taught him how to do laundry and introduced him to Carly Rae Jepson and gave him a stack of journals for his journey and he missed her so much. 

He crawls towards her and wraps her in a tight hug, still laughing, “Well, I’m here.” Annie laughs into his shoulder. Or maybe sobs? Troy’s not sure. He lets go of her and turns towards Britta, who is crying more than any of them. 

They just look at each other for a second, neither knowing what to say. “Um,” Troy starts, “Sorry about... doing the opposite of what you told me to do.”

“Oh, shut up,” she smiles and launches forwards to hug him. 

“Oh, so just cause we’re too old to get on the floor we don’t get a hug?” Shirley asks from above, but she’s smiling too much for it to really sound passive aggressive. Troy stands up quickly to throw his arms around Shirley too, but once he does he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Okay,” Jeff says, “We gotta talk.” Troy turns from Shirley, opening his arms to Jeff and immediately enveloping him a hug. He can feel Jeff sigh in an exasperated way he does when he can’t find it in himself to actually be mad. He wraps his arms around Troy in response.

“I missed you guys.” Troy said into Jeff’s shoulder.

“Yeah, but I bet there’s someone you miss more.” Jeff says a little pointedly, his chin perched on Troy’s shoulder.

“Huh?” Troy thinks for a second, then his eyes snaps open. He pulled away from Jeff’s chest, holding his shoulders at arm’s length, “Where’s Abed.”

Britta, Shirley, and Annie started talking over each other again. Troy was able to catch snippets of “He’s not getting married!” and “...had one of his little flashback meltdowns.” and “...he conned us!” 

Troy noticed the Not Annie lady didn’t seem to know what was happening either, as she began to look more and more confused. She must’ve realized Troy was looking at her, because she looked back and gave him a look that seemed to say “I don’t know you but I’m sorry.”

“Shut up.” Jeff said in what Troy remembered as his frustrated dad voice. Jeff looked down at Troy, “Let me rip off all the bandaids right now. Abed got engaged so you would come back and stop him.”

“He... What?” Troy could feel his brain wrinkling.

“He’s been flashbacking about it for like an hour. I guess it worked cause you’re here. Britta also let him read your emails. Including the one where you said you weren’t coming and I’m not even going to _ask_ why you lied about that because today’s already so goddamn weird.”

Troy’s brain was making FAX machine noises, “...What?”

“Anyway. Abed kinda flipped out when he heard you weren’t coming and dipped.” Jeff finished, then appealed to the room, “Did I miss anything?” Annie raised her hand, “Yes, Annie?”

“Just to clarify,” she began cautiously, “He does know you’re in love with him. He just didn’t think you’d come...?”

“Yes, good thinking, Annie.” Jeff said. Troy wondered how they could all be so calm about this while there must be steam pouring out of his ears. The Not Annie woman raised her hand hesitantly. “Yes, Frankie.” Jeff called her.

“Abed’s fiance did just cancel the wedding for what I believe were unrelated reasons.” The woman called Frankie said, “...I’m Frankie. By the way.” she nodded politely at Troy. He nodded back.

“Great.” Jeff said, “Anyone else? Britta?”

“Yes, I would just like to say that I stand by telling you, Troy, to not try and stop Abed, I just didn’t have -”

“Irrelevant, Britta,” Jeff said. Britta scoffed, but didn’t try and fight back, “Last one. Shirley?”

“Yes, thank you,” Shirley said lowering her hand on Troy’s shoulder, “First of all, I want to say how proud I am of you. I know a lot of people wouldn’t be brave enough to do something like this. But it’s important to fight for the people you love and I’m so glad you’re here.” she smiled at Troy and finally Troy could feel his feet returning to Earth. But Shirley’s look changed, “But you better go find that boy or I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Troy felt tears racing down his cheeks, “THAT’S THE SWEETEST THING YOU’VE EVER SAID TO ME.” he choked out. There was a chorus of “Awww” as Troy felt three sets of arms wrap around him.

“Okay, that’s enough of that.” Jeff said flatly, “We gotta find Abed.”

“I’ve been trying to call him.” Troy sniffed as the arms released him.

“Yeah, we noticed.” Annie said, pulling Abed’s phone out of her pocket.

“You couldn’t try that a little sooner?” Britta asked.

“Yeah, maybe a few months sooner?” Jeff added.

“I didn’t have a phone yet.” Troy wiped his face with his wrist. Shirley pulled a packet of tissues out of her bag and handed it to Troy wordlessly like she would when they were still at Greendale together, “I tried to email him, but...” Troy shook his head, furrowed his brow, and pulled a tissue out of the packet, “It didn’t feel right.” 

Of course Troy had thought about emailing Abed when Britta had told him to, but there was always something holding him back that he couldn’t shake that he’s not sure he could explain now or even ever. Instead he opted to blow his nose, feelings everyone’s eye boring into him.

“Communicating your feelings like a functional human didn’t feel right.” Jeff stated back at him. 

Troy absentmindedly handed Annie his used tissue. She took it without flinching. “I mean... It’s weird. I don’t even know how -”

“Try.” Jeff said, crossing his arms. “Please explain to your friends why you let us waste _months_ of our life on this.”

“Jeff, be nice!” Annie scolded, “He didn’t know!”

“Yeah, we’re wasting time!” Britta added.

“Look, I knew if I was going to stop Abed from getting married he wouldn’t wanna know, okay!” Troy spat back. He definitely is not the kid Jeff used to know anymore and he doesn't really like being scolded like one anymore. “He likes plot twists!”

Jeff’s jaw dropped, legitimately dropped in a way Troy had seen very rarely. “Are you telling me.” Jeff said like the breath had just been knocked out of him, “That you and Abed managed to come up with the same plan... on opposite sides of the world?”

Troy thought for a second. “Yeah... I think.” he said, puzzled, “Yeah.” he grinned, “We have, like, the same brain and stuff.” Troy couldn’t help but think that was kinda romantic.

“Get out.” Jeff said evenly, “I’m going to strangle you. Get out.”

Annie put an arm around Troy’s shoulder, “Okay.” she said softly, “Lets go.” and escorted Troy out of the room as Jeff sat down with his head in his hands. Annie nodded at Britta and then at Jeff, silently telling her to talk him down. Britta seemed to get it because she cringed and went to stand by Jeff’s side.

Troy, Annie, Shirley, and the woman named Frankie stepped out into the hallway, Shirley closing the door behind her.

“So, uh,” Annie said, “This is weird. How do we find Abed? Did you see him when you were coming in?” she asked Troy. He shook his head. He had a feeling where Abed might have gone already and began to wander towards the large window towards the end of the hallway.

“We could go down to the front desk,” Frankie began, “See if anyone -”

“Found him.” Troy couldn’t help but smile at the silhouette on the beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWO MORE TO GO  
> I hope you guys liked this one!!!! This was oddly difficult to write, since there was so much ground to cover. But your comments KEEP ME ALIVE YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING BLESS YOU


	9. Mutual Catharsis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Troy and Abed are still Troy and Abed after all these years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS ONE IS A TWO PARTER. I HOPE THIS LIVES UP TO ALL YOUR EXPECTATIONS. LOVE YOU ALL.

Abed doesn’t like the beach. 

Well, that’s untrue. He doesn’t like sand. And, no, he was not fond of _that scene_ In Attack of the Clones. It’s well known how Abed feels about the Star Wars prequels.

He was 11 when Phantom Menace came out, but it wouldn’t be until 7 years later till he saw it and hated it more than anything. 

“I don’t really get why you hate them so much, they’re fun,” Annie said a little defensively when he had talked to her at length on the subject.

“I’m going to act like you didn’t say that,” Abed said. The two of them had never really talked about Star Wars that much when Troy was around, because Troy was there to nod and listen to Abed talk in essays about the poor screenwriting of George Lucas. But Annie had opinions on Star Wars. Many, as Abed discovered, that she would talk about if asked. Or sometimes not.

“Well, think about it.” Annie pushed, “When did you watch the originals?”

“When I was a kid.”

“And the prequels?”

“Later. I was 17 or 18.” Abed said. After his mother had left, Abed saw fewer movies in the theater and his viewing became more restricted to what he and his father already had on DVD and VHS.

“Well, _I_ watched them all when I was a kid.” Annie said, “In the _theater_ ”

“I’m sorry for you, but what’s your point.”

“Well, I didn’t really know what movies were _good_ or _bad_ yet.” Annie shrugged, “And I associate them with good memories. They’re kinda goofy now, but I can still enjoy them. Maybe you couldn’t enjoy them cause they ruined your good memories of the first ones.”

Abed conceded to her point in the moment and dwelled on it later - and often - to the point of developing a new philosophy: If you romanticize anything you are bound for disappointment. Not everything can live up to your expectations - Phantom Menace, The Dark Knight Rises, Shrek the Third, etcetera... Some movies just don’t live up to the hype of their predecessors.

Of course, you can’t always tell when you’ve been over-romanticizing until it’s too late. And it was far too late when he woke up that morning and considered that Troy may not actually come. What if he had put too much pressure on Troy to be something he couldn’t. What if Clone Troy was the Prequel Trilogy of Troys? 

The truth, however, was much worse. Troy, better than any piece of tv or film he’d ever seen, hadn’t even been greenlit.

This may be the most emotionally distraught he has been since Troy had left in the first place. He’s just empty. He stares out at the ocean lapping the shore and considers just walking in. Very overdramatic. He could see the final scene of an indie drama where he just walks into waves, symbolically letting the water cleanse him of his mistakes and of his misery and of Troy. It would be satisfying in the moment and as the credits roll you’d wipe away a tear knowing Abed has developed as a character. 

So Abed moves to take off his shoes when he hears sand shift behind him. Of course, Annie would come after him.

“I’m not going back.” he says, tossing one shoe aside, “I’m gonna get into the ocean now. It’ll be cathartic I think. Very coming of age film.” He tosses the other shoe and turns his head to look up at Annie, “You can come if you -” He stops. 

That is most certainly not Annie. 

Troy has grown out his hair and a beard and he’s a few years older, just like Abed is, but Abed would recognize Troy if he was half-cyborg or a werewolf or just a pair of pants haunted by the ghost of Troy and the only thing you could use to identify him was the shape of his legs in said pants. 

Troy looks just as terrified as Abed feels. Why is he terrified, this is what he wanted right? Why does he feel like he might throw up. 

They looked at each other for what felt like hours, even though he only hears one wave hit the shore while they do so. Troy exhales sharply in time with a tear running down his cheek. He wipes it away quickly and smiles. Abed had forgotten that Troy’s smile could be hard to look at directly, like you're looking into the sun. 

Troy quickly tries to make himself frown, so he can look cool and casual Abed knows, but the smile is tugging at his lips.

“Sounds awesome.” Troy says in feigned nonchalance, “Like an Imagine Dragons song is playing in the background?”

Abed follows his lead, “Yeah.” he stands up, shrugs off his blazer, and tosses it on the sand.

“Cool,” Troy says, finally letting himself smile at Abed. 

They just look at each other again. It’s hard to think of what to say Abed realizes. So Abed settles for grabbing Troy’s hand. Once Troy realizes what Abed is going, he hastily interlaces his fingers with Abed.

“Cool, cool, cool.” Abed finished.

Without another word Troy and Abed burst into a run towards the water, tugging each other along, hand in hand. 

Troy began laughing as they careened down the sand and Abed could’ve sworn he’d never heard a better score in any second of film than Troy’s laughter crescendoing as the ocean approached them. He could hear an echo join Troy’s chorus and realized he had begun laughing too. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he did genuinely laugh, but that didn’t matter because they were crashing into the shallow waves. Abed felt Troy’s hand jolt out of his own and realized that Troy had tripped, his laughter being silenced as his head went underwater. Abed turned to look where Troy went under, nearly waist-deep into the water now.

Troy emerged from the water coughing but still laughing. Abed found himself stupefied, looking at Troy kneeling in front of him with the waves lapping against hit neck and _still laughing._

“You came.” he managed to say.

Troy stopped laughing and looked surprised, as if he forgot how he got here. “Yeah...” He grinned bashfully, “Pierce wasn’t really, uh, specific. He never said one of my stops couldn’t be Los Angeles, so...”

“Oh.” Abed nodded, “Well. Thank you for coming. I was beginning to think that -”

“Actually,” Troy stood up quickly, or as quickly as the waves allowed, “Do you mind if I... I, um, prepared something.” 

“Nice.”

Troy pulled a piece of notebook paper out of his pocket to find all the ink had run in the water, “Um...” the soft paper split in his hands, “Damn. It’s cool. I think I remember it.”

“It’s okay,” Abed began, “You don’t have to -”

“I love you. I mean, like, I’m _in_ love with you. Abed. Holy shit, Abed, I think I’ve been in love with you for like forever.” Troy began. Abed thinks his heart just stopped. He hadn’t anticipated that Troy actually telling him out loud would result in his untimely, but ultimately happy, death. “Look, I’ve... I’ve been trying to find myself?” Troy continued, recalling his own written words, “And I have and it’s been great and stuff but I just... I miss you. Like I crazy miss you. Like I kept hoping I’d wake up one day and I’d have grown those homing pigeon wings and I could fly back to you just for a day, but you just left me with the compulsion to come back to you and I couldn’t!” he dashed his hand against the water, splashing water at Abed. 

“And I kept kicking myself,” Troy continued, “Because I shouldn’t have wanted that. I’ve already given you everything. I’ve given you all of me, Abed! I fell into lava for you! I should be able to have something for myself, but it’s like I had this piece of me that had your name written on it in sharpie and I’ve been trying to wipe it off for years and when you guys cloned me you cloned that too.” Troy sighed and Abed realized Troy was a few steps closer now. He doesn’t know which one of them has been closing the short distance between them, he could swear it was a gravitational pull. 

“And don’t me wrong, I need to be Troy, alone, just like you’ve always been Abed alone,” Abed could see all the details on Troy’s face now, all the new lines and scars. He decided he would have to memorize them. He could see tears on the edges of Troy’s eyes that had seemed to settle in there. Abed thought he might cry, but Troy laughed again, “But Troy alone is, like, crazy in love with Abed alone.” he said with a sense of finality. “Soooo, yeah. Don’t get married. Well, I mean, you’re already not, but...” Troy’s face drifted toward the familiar expression Abed associated with Troy being thoughtful, “I think I wanna do that someday. Marry you, I mean. And I totally wouldn’t mind being your second husband, but I think I’d go crazy knowing you were somewhere out there being in love with someone that wasn’t me.”

“I’ve never been in love with someone that wasn’t you.” Abed said without a second thought, “That isn’t something you’d have to worry about.”

“Really?” Troy beamed bigger than he already had already if that was possible. “Oh thank god.” He chuckled, “Good... Then, uh, you can go get married to anyone you want. I guess. As long as it’s totally loveless.” Troy nodded seriously.

“It would be completely loveless.” Abed informed him professionally, “I’d be miserable.”

“Good, me too.” And like muscle memory, Troy reached out his hand and raised the other to his chest. Abed reached out to meet it without a second thought. 

_Thump, thump._

But neither let go. Abed looked at their hands and then back up at Troy.

“Aren’t you going to kiss me?” he asked.

“Can I?” Troy was genuinely surprised, which made Abed chuckle.

“I’d be pretty disappointed if you didn’t at this point.”

“Awesome.” Troy tugged Abed’s hand, pulling him in close and settling his other arm around Abed’s waist. “I’m gonna kiss you now.” And he did. 

After what Abed wished had been a millennia of kissing (he doesn’t think he’ll ever kiss Troy enough to make up for all the wasted time) he and Troy had trudged back to the shore in wet clothes. Well, trudging as much as one can when Troy is stopping Abed in his tracks every three steps to kiss him again.

“We should talk.” Abed had said when they had collapsed on the sand again, placing a hand on Troy’s face when he had leaned in to kiss him again.

“Yeah,” Troy said, not moving at all, “We should. Hi.”

“Hi. You said you weren’t coming.” Abed said flatly, still holding Troy’s face.

“Secret plan.” Troy said simply, “Duh-doy. Sorry I was late. I tried to call on the way.”

“Why didn’t you call sooner?” Abed asked

“Why didn’t you?” Troy asked quietly.

Abed didn’t know how to answer, so he leaned in to give Troy the kiss he was waiting for. 

“No, dude,” Troy shifted away, “Why didn’t you talk to me.”

“Does it matter?”

“I think so.” 

Abed sighed through his nose, “There were a lot. Of reasons. First, I think I wasn’t sure what to say. Then I was kinda mad. Maybe sad? There were a lot of feelings I couldn’t put a label on, but...” Abed drew circles in the sand, “I figured maybe you were better off without me. And I wanted you to remember me... better than I was, I think. So you would come back.” Abed looked back up at Troy, who seemed confused.

“Better than you were?” he asked.

“I wasn’t always great. To you.” Abed supplied, eyes darting away again, “I’m still not that great.”

“Hey.” Troy reached over and took Abed’s hand, intertwining the finger again, “I didn’t come back because you’re perfect.” he said firmly, “I came back because I love you. Okay?”

Abed nodded. Paused. “I told you I love you, right?”

Troy looked shocked. “No.” he choked out.

“Well, I’m in love with you.” Abed said, “Just so that’s clear.”

Troy breathed a sigh of relief, “Good, I was getting scared that maybe you didn’t.”

“Of course I love you. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t.” Abed shrugged.

Troy sobbed suddenly, like the dam keeping him together finally burst. 

“Do you want me to kiss you again?” Abed asked.

Troy nodded and Abed cupped his face in his hands and kissed him again softly.

“Okay.” Troy sniffed when Abed pulled away, “I think I’m better.” 

“Cool,” Abed said, using his thumb to wipe away Troy’s tears, “Cool, cool, cool.”

“I really missed you, man.” Troy put his hand over Abed’s on his cheek, “You really freaked me out. What happened to that dude you were marrying anyway?”

“Oh, David was a fail-safe.”

“A what?”

“David is really nice, but he has deep-seated commit issues.” Abed said quickly, “I knew he wouldn’t go through with it.”

“That’s...” Troy blinked, “Abed, that’s -”

“Crazy?”

“Genius.” Troy said, “You’re so smart.”

“Don’t let it go to my head.” Abed gave him a flat smile before frowning in thought. He slid his hand out of Troy’s grasp. “You said LA was a stop. Do you have to leave again.”

Troy deflated. “...Yeah.”

“When are you leaving,” Abed said, not looking at Troy. He shouldn’t be disappointed. He can’t expect Troy to come at his beck and call constantly.

“I mean... LeVar went home.” Troy said cautiously, “But I’m still allowed to have a companion... I was kind of hoping...” 

“Oh.” Abed looked back up at Troy, who was looking at him with what Abed recognized as a helpless look. He took Troy’s hand again, letting Troy interlace the fingers once again. “When are we leaving?”


	10. Epilogue: Troy

**Abed Nadir** < asyouwishnadir@gmail.com >

Subject: Re: Travel Log

I would suggest playing something soft and acoustic over this, something from a rom-com or coming of age film. It’ll enhance the experience. Thanks.

Annie,

I’m glad you and Britta had fun on what would’ve been my honeymoon. Me and Troy are sorry for what we put you all through so consider this the start of a long road of making it up to you. I really hope you actually managed to get Elsa’s signature for Troy, because if you didn’t he’ll be really disappointed but no pressure.

I did reach out to David this week and explained the situation and apologized. He promptly blocked my number, so it doesn’t look like we will be reconciling any time soon. 

Canada was fun, but it had nothing on Ireland. It is actually as pretty as you said it would be. Troy sailed us by the real Cliffs of Insanity (apparently they have a real name, but it’s not important). We’re headed to England tomorrow and then France after that. Troy insisted I had to see Paris.

We’ve been talking, me and Troy, a lot. Not that there’s anyone else to talk to in the middle of the ocean, but we’ve been  _ talking. _ It’s been a few years and we can’t just go back to the way we were before (not that I want to - I definitely prefer the additional duty of being Troy’s boyfriend than just his best friend) except it is like it was before. Old habits die hard, I guess.

I thought maybe we’d disappoint each other, that we wouldn’t live up to each other’s hype. I failed to remember that some sequels are better than the original. Of course he’s different - so am I - but he hasn’t changed into a completely new person. Just more Troy than he used to be. He’s still my best friend. If there are new things about him, it’s not a burden to learn more about my favorite person.

Sorry, I’m info-dumping. I should skip to the point.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but Troy asked me to marry him. I think he had been planning to do so in Paris, but it just popped out in Ireland.

I was telling him how we should try and find where the rest of the Princess Bride was shot (they shot at multiple locations in our next stop, England). Troy agreed and asked me to hand him his laptop, so he could try to map it out. I did and placed it down in front of him with a flourish. Princess Bride being on my mind I added, “As You Wish.” That was enough for Troy to ask me to marry him right there. 

I said yes. And then no, it’s too soon. And then yes, eventually. Yes when the trip is over. As soon as our feet hit American soil we’re engaged. I know you’re probably excited about planning the wedding of the century right now (I can hear you “Aww-ing” from here) but no planning until we get back. 

But also you should probably start trying to figure out how to get fireworks. 

I know this all may seem like it’s moving very fast, but believe me when I say it’s not moving fast enough.

Much love from Ireland,

Abed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THATS IT. WE DID IT.  
> i decided to post the last two chapters at once, considering they're both a little shorter and go hand in hand.  
> i definitely plan on writing more stories following this (in what I've been calling the Long Con-Verse). stuff like britta and annie on the honeymoon, troy and abed in europe, and definitely their return and wedding, so if you enjoyed this stay tuned for those :)  
> thank you for taking the time to read this, it's been really fulfilling writing this and seeing how many of y'all are enjoying it and are invested. please know how much you mean to me if you had fun while reading this, thank you so very much.


End file.
